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In a recent Senate hearing, I questioned the government on its decision to include a standing appropriation—an open-ended budget allocation—in its Pacific Banking Guarantee legislation. This approach bypasses the annual appropriation process, removing Senate oversight and public transparency.

The Pacific Banking Guarantee is a scheme whereby the Federal Government guarantees the operation of banks across the Pacific. If these banks encounter financial difficulties, the Federal Government will bail them out. Why this is the business of the Australian Government escapes me. Why banks such as the Commonwealth and ANZ require a Federal Government guarantee, despite earning profits exceeding $15 billion annually, is a question they refused to answer. The Guarantee itself is worth no more than $2 billion—even in the unlikely event of a total loss. This Guarantee has been provided to give the Big Four banks a competitive advantage over other banks and financial institutions. With this Guarantee, they can borrow money at lower rates, thereby increasing their profits and creating an “I owe you one” sense of obligation to the Federal Government. I assume Minister Bowen intends to leverage this influence to “encourage” investment in wind and solar energy, despite the questionable economic viability of such ventures.

This is how government operates: influence-trading using taxpayers’ money.

Standing allocations cannot be questioned, and the only way to halt this flow of money to our major banks is through legislation that overturns the allocation. Given that the Greens have supported big banking in this country throughout the Albanese Government’s term – alongside the Government itself – any effort to restore accountability to the Pacific (big) Banking Guarantee is going to fail.

This reflects the contempt of the Albanese Government. The ALP is proving to be even bigger corporate lapdogs than the Liberals were.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: The Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills requested a justification for why this bill includes a standing appropriation rather than being included in the annual appropriation bill, which would give the Senate oversight. Please explain why a standing appropriation is required. 

Senator CHISHOLM: Thanks, Senator Roberts, for the question. A special appropriation is more suitable for meeting possible liabilities than annual appropriations. While the likelihood the Commonwealth will need to make a payment is very low, we may be urgently required at any time to meet liabilities arising under a guarantee, which may fall outside the usual budget cycle. This means the annual appropriation process may not be available within the timeframe any liability falls due.  

Without a special appropriation, it is possible parliament will be recalled to pass an urgent appropriation or the Commonwealth can risk defaulting on its liabilities. The special appropriation is not proposed to have a direct dollar limit, as this provides the Commonwealth with flexibility to ensure it achieves a significant national interest objective, securing an Australian banking presence in the Pacific over the long term.  

The Commonwealth would not provide an unlimited guarantee, however there may be circumstances where the maximum amount guaranteed under the appropriation could change. This includes if the Commonwealth entered into a new agreement with another Australian bank and the legislation limits on the types of guarantees the government can provide to guarantees—only from an ADI banking business in the Pacific region. Specifically, the legislation limits the guarantee to only the ADI’s Pacific operations. 

Senator ROBERTS: So it’s an open-ended budget allocation. The guarantees being provided by this government are commercial-in-confidence. This means the Senate will not have oversight on what the government is agreeing to. Is that correct? 

Senator CHISHOLM: In terms of reporting obligations, any Pacific banking guarantee, including the ANZ agreement, will contain mechanisms to ensure a bank’s compliance with its obligations. This includes regular reporting on the total amount of guaranteed liabilities and the compliance with bank commitments as well. 

Senator ROBERTS: The duration of the ANZ guarantee is 10 years, meaning this government is binding future governments. Can the federal government withdraw from a guarantee at any time in those 10 years? If so, is there any sunset clause or time limit to the guarantees? 

Senator CHISHOLM: It’s a commercial agreement that’s been entered into with the Commonwealth. There is no sunsetting clause. 

Senator ROBERTS: I am told the World Bank is also working on a plan to assist correspondent banking intermediaries in the Pacific. Why didn’t you join that international effort, and will you use what they come up with as a way of sunsetting this arrangement? 

Senator CHISHOLM: Any Pacific banking guarantee is expected to complement the World Bank’s Pacific Strengthening Correspondent Banking Relationships Project, the CBR project. The government strongly supports the World Bank’s work on this in terms of the work they are doing in the Pacific. 

Senator ROBERTS: If you have strong confidence in the World Bank, why not let the World Bank do it? 

Senator CHISHOLM: Phase 1 of the World Bank project will establish a correspondent banking relationship provider of last resorts, which countries can call upon should they lose their financial correspondent banking relationship in a particular currency. It is intended to be a fallback for when there is no other commercially viable option. 

Senator ROBERTS: This bill does not specify what is being guaranteed, so let me ask. Does the guarantee extend to the Australian government guaranteeing loans by Australian banks to the governments of Pacific nations? 

Senator AYRES: Senator Roberts, we’ve just had a small changeover. I’m just trying to ensure that I can give you accurate information. The Commonwealth provides a limited guarantee to ANZ, under this legislation, in connection with banking operations in nine markets across the Pacific and Timor-Leste.  

Those markets are Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga and Vanuatu. The guarantee only covers certain eligible liabilities, and it is only triggered if certain trigger events occur and result in a loss to ANZ. The Commonwealth has only provided the guarantee for certain eligible liabilities in order to minimise the risks and potential costs of any Pacific banking guarantee to the Commonwealth and to mitigate any potential competition or market distortion risks in Pacific financial markets and the Pacific banking sector.  

To preserve the non-distortionary mechanisms in the guarantee, the government will not be disclosing the specific terms of the guarantee, including the types of exposures that are covered. If it assists Senator Roberts, the government was, of course, provided with extensive commercial advice on the guarantee, including around the risks, and commercial risk assessments found the likelihood of a default to be very low. 

Senator ROBERTS: I appreciate your statement that you’d like to give me accurate information, but you didn’t answer the question. I take it that you can’t answer the question of whether or not the Australian government is guaranteeing loans by Australian banks to the governments of Pacific nations. 

Senator AYRES: I’ll try and answer a little bit more directly, if it assists. The reason that I answer it in the way that I do, Senator Roberts, is that the advice that is provided and the terms of the guarantee are, of course, commercial in confidence, for policy reasons, in particular so that they don’t distort the banking and financial services markets in the Pacific. I’ll get the team behind me to correct me if I answer this incorrectly.  

The question about the support that the Australian government provides to Pacific island countries is quite different to this set of arrangements, which is about ensuring that banking services are provided and that there is trade, the free movements of goods, investment and all of the things that go with having banking services provided with the facilitation and support of the Australian government. I hope that assists; I’m not sure that it will. If you’ve got further questions, I’ll endeavour to answer them. 

Senator ROBERTS: It doesn’t answer the question, but I’ll come back to it later. Minister, Australian banks like the ANZ raise money to lend in the market, issuing bonds and debt securities. If the intended use of that capital is to issue government-guaranteed loans to Pacific nations, which this bill would allow, does that not give banks like the ANZ a competitive advantage in the capital market? And is any oversight intended of the capital raising of Australian banks to make sure they are honest in their representations to the capital market? 

Senator AYRES: Any banking guarantee in the Pacific, including this agreement, will contain mechanisms to ensure a bank’s compliance with its obligations, which include regular reporting on the total amount of guaranteed liabilities, and to ensure compliance with bank commitments. There are measures undertaken in order to deal with that concern, which is at present, I would argue, theoretical.  

I hope that the financial markets in this area lift to a point that is consistent with the kind of development, growth, investment and trade that the Australian government is working with our Pacific partners to facilitate. That is in their interest and in our interest for that to occur. The kinds of measures that you’re talking about—I’ll put that backwards—do not have a distortionary effect on capital markets or on financial markets.  

There is extensive work that sits behind this that has been directed towards achieving that outcome. ANZ has made a number of commitments to its Pacific operations in the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu in exchange for this guarantee that includes maintaining face-to-face banking services and enhancing the ANZ Bank’s services, including digital services. That is important for people and businesses and economic growth and investment in each of those states.  

It supports ongoing access to correspondent banking services in the Pacific and international money transfers, including the Australian dollar but also the New Zealand dollar and the US dollar. It will also maintain fee-free remittances for ANZ customers. That is important for facilitating more trade and more transactions. It will involve investing an additional $50 million to enhance the ANZ’s digital banking offering in the Pacific, excluding in Papua New Guinea, again, mobilised by some of the issues about making sure that the effect here is to support providing banking services where they are at risk.  

The uplift that is engaged there will impact the ANZ’s retail banking operations everywhere, except for Papua New Guinea, where ANZ today currently only offers institutional banking services that play an important role for the mining sector and other parts of the Papua New Guinea economy. Alongside this, there are efforts to continue to support and promote financial inclusion and literacy, and ANZ will continue to support Pacific countries in terms of their infrastructure financing, in line with the bank’s credit risk policies.  

That is the nature of the impact of the guarantee, in terms of capital markets. It should not be conflated, of course, with the efforts that the Australian government engages in through EFA and various efforts to support infrastructure development and economic development more broadly in the Pacific. This is about supporting the banking infrastructure—maybe I shouldn’t say ‘infrastructure’, because it’s confusing—the banking retail network and digital services that sit alongside that throughout the Pacific states.  

Senator ROBERTS: I noticed that, in starting that answer, you used the words, ‘I hope that the financial markets lift’—I hope—to the trade, yet, in Australia, we had severe breaches of the law by senior banking and financial institution officials and no-one went to jail—no-one! You also said that you’d like to maintain face-to-face banking services in the Pacific islands, yet we can’t get that here in Australia. Minister, is this bill just putting more money in the pockets of the big four banks by lowering their borrowing costs relative to other banks? 

Senator AYRES: The short answer to that question, Senator Roberts, is no. It does not achieve that objective in any practical way. It’s not one of the principles that’s engaged here. Australia does have a very well-regulated banking sector, and that is a national asset for Australia. That is important for our capacity to deliver investment and growth and financial transactions and security for borrowers and lenders and projects.  

In times of financial stress, our well-regulated banking sector is a fundamental part of Australia’s economic resilience in what is a pretty challenging world that we live in. That is not related to what is being provided for here. There will always be, as you’ve alluded to, bad actors, bad things happening, malfeasance, errors, omissions or whatever in any system. I have no argument with that. That is what the regulatory sector is designed to deal with. This situation is about extending banking services that might not otherwise be extended to a part of the world that needs banking services, and it is in Australia’s interest for those to be provided.  

This ensures that, through arrangements supported by this legislation and also by the commercial and non-distortionary measures, it’s provided in a way in which there is no disadvantage to the Australian banking sector—and, when I say ‘banking sector’, what I mean is the kind of services that customers and businesses would need and expect from the Australian banking sector. Quite the contrary to the final suggestion in your question, this is not a matter of the government paying an amount to the ANZ; in fact, it’s quite the reverse.  

The ANZ pays an annual fee with respect to the guarantee, and the Department of Finance and the Commonwealth’s commercial advisor have provided advice on the annual fee. That fee amount, for some of the reasons that you’ve alluded to in some of your previous questions and in order to ensure that it doesn’t have a distortionary effect, is commercial in confidence and cannot be disclosed publicly. The guarantee isn’t a subsidy. It’s not a bailout. The government will not be providing any direct funding to Australian banks for their Pacific operations. 

Senator ROBERTS: That sounds like a protection fee. Let’s get this straight. Banks have no risk—they have a guarantee if they have any losses—so banks cannot lose, so that sounds like a protection fee. Minister, who drafted your bill for you? The banks? 

Senator AYRES: Certainly not. That is certainly not the case. This bill is drafted, this arrangement has been struck, in order to support regional communities in Australia and Pacific nations to access banking services. That is in Australia’s national interest. That is fundamentally what is engaged here. For Pacific nations, remaining connected to global finance is one of their highest priorities because it supports their own economic development and their economic resilience. Investment in capability; investment in new businesses; microfinance for small businesses; and making sure that project finance can be accessed for the kinds of mining, development, manufacturing and other projects that deliver good jobs, stable investment, national economic growth, regional interdependence and economic resilience in the region—all of that is in Australia’s national interest.  

Those are the questions that are being engaged here. In terms of regional Australia, this government has secured commitments from the banks that previous governments have failed to secure—a moratorium on regional bank closures from the four major banks, as well as an agreement to increase their commitment to, and their investment in, Bank@Post. I grew up in a little country town. I know how important those services are. And I know you would not be so mischievous as to suggest that there is a relationship between the services provided to regional Australians through their banks and the government’s determination to protect that— 

CHAIR: Minister, I hate to interrupt you, but it’s 1.30. 

Progress reported. 

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank deny home loans to mining communities

Australian banks are the world’s most profitable, raking in $30bn in profits last year. Much of this was sent overseas to their foreign shareholders, including the usual suspects – Blackrock, First State, and Vanguard. In total, Australian banks paid $27 billion in dividends, of which 26% or around $7 billion was sent to foreign-owned corporations.

Every dollar which goes overseas in dividends is a dollar Australia never sees again, reducing our GDP and making us all poorer.

In this Parliament, One Nation will introduce legislation to create an Australian People’s Bank, with 100% Australian ownership and a Banking Code of Practice which gives customers rights and protections that have been removed from the code being used by Australian banks.

Rural and Regional customers will benefit the most, with many Australian towns no longer having a single bank branch.

Banking greed, dishonesty, and profiteering is something I have been working on since coming into the Senate in 2016.

In 2017 One Nation were successful in creating a Select Committee on Lending to Primary Production Customers. It was obvious to the Senate the banks were screwing over the bush.

Specific issues raised by the Inquiry have been substantially addressed although remediation has not occurred. The big banks are behaving more responsibly in their lending practices as a result of this Inquiry and the Royal Commission that followed.

While lending practices have improved, the banks have turned to other schemes to make their excessive profits.

One area of great concern, one which will be corrected by a People’s Bank, is the closing of bank branches, forcing customers online.


In the last 10 years 2,500 bank branches have closed


I have written about the effect this has before. Today there is a new scam I want to alert you to. I thank the fearless journalist Dale Webster for her work on this topic: link to her article titled “Burning Down the House”.

The culprit this time is the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Australia’s fifth largest bank.

Bendigo are refusing to give home loans to any town or region which hosts a mine. This includes any mine, no matter the purpose – gold, coal, iron ore, bauxite, rare earths needed for the technology – everything.

Yes, the Bendigo Bank is black-banning towns where the very materials are mined that are used to make the computers that run their bank. What folly.

Anyone applying online for a loan to buy property in a mining area is immediately denied. Home lending in all of Queensland’s mining regions – from coal, oil and gas to opal mining – is knocked back by Bendigo Bank. Yes, even opals.

Distinct areas separated from others by favoured postcodes include Moura (4718) in the Bowen Basin coalfield, home to the Dawson Coal Mine, Mount Isa (4825), site of one of Australia’s largest copper and zinc mining complexes, and the world-renowned opal fields surrounding Quilpie and Longreach.

Coal centres Moranbah, Dysart, Clermont, Emerald, and Blackwater are no home-loan zones, as is the Roma-Miles-Dalby district, the site of Australia’s first oil and gas discoveries. Weipa, built by Rio Tinto to house bauxite mine workers in Far North Queensland, gets an instant knockback as does Tieri, built to house coal workers north of Emerald.

In the course of this investigation, more than 1,000 locations across Australia have been run through Bendigo Bank’s online loan process to verify whether this is truly a mining blacklist or if these postcodes are part of a bigger cohort focusing on general risk.

The Australian Taxation Office’s 10 lowest earning suburbs in every state and territory for 2021-22 were reviewed. The top 100 riskiest suburbs to purchase housing in for 2024 according to Realestate.com were reviewed. Climate Valuation’s top 30 suburbs by ‘number of high-risk properties from all climate change hazards by 2030’ were reviewed. All were approved.

Bendigo Bank will lend for housing in the poorest, riskiest, and most isolated places in Australia rather than a mining area.

This is not about risk, this is about social engineering.

Bendigo and Adelaide bank are publicly-listed Australian companies. They have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to act in their best interests, not indulge their own prejudices.

As Dale points out, the embarrassing thing is that Bendigo, the city from which Bendigo Bank takes its name and where it has its head office, was built on gold mining.

If people cannot finance their home purchases these towns will die. This is a deliberate and possibly criminal attempt by the Bendigo Bank to destroy mining in Australia by destroying the towns that support the mines.

Once an area loses housing credits and mortgages the bank in that area can be closed, using the lie that there is no longer the demand for the branch. The truth is the banks are creating the lack of demand by withdrawing key banking services and engineering the closure.

Do you hear a peep out of the leadership of the Nationals or the Liberals about this? No of course not.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and Nationals Leader David Littleproud take their orders form the same predatory merchant banks that Bendigo Bank does. The Liberals, in particular, have overseen this destruction of retail banking in Australia since the time of Prime Minister Howard.

Only One Nation will fix this profiteering and control agenda by creating a People’s Bank.


Mining towns debanked by Senator Malcolm Roberts

Bendigo and Adelaide Bank deny home loans to mining communities

Read on Substack

Australians are being priced out of their own country — and I’m calling it out.

In this full interview, I expose the real forces behind our housing crisis. Foreign buyers are snapping up homes while everyday Aussies are left struggling to afford a roof over their heads.

44% of the cost of a new home is TAX. That’s right — nearly half the price is government greed.

I lay out my bold plan: every foreign property owner will have two years to sell — no exceptions. It’s time we put Australians first.

I also dive into:

  • The massive impact of immigration on housing demand
  • How climate policies are wrecking our economy
  • And the banking system that’s bleeding families dry

Unemployable Media – not just a channel; they are a community that celebrates and uplifts individuals charting unconventional paths.

Unemployable Media is your go-to destination for content, online courses, live events, and a vibrant community that embraces those who defy standard career norms.

🌐 [Website] https://www.unemployable.com.au 📷 [Instagram]   / unemployablemedia   🔊 [Spotify] https://open.spotify.com/show/4GSSCIv… 🎧 [Apple] https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast…

Transcript

Adam Hudson: What’s up, guys?  Welcome to this very special episode of UNEMPLOYABLE.  This is our discussion with Senator Malcolm Roberts.  He is a federal member for One Nation.  It was a really insightful chat.  We covered a lot of stuff. 

If you don’t know anything about Senator Roberts, he is a very controversial figure in Australian politics. He does not believe in climate change. He is very vocal about immigration. He’s very vocal about our energy and how we are giving it away for literally nothing. He is very vocal about our overspending and waste as a nation.  He’s very vocal about what makes great children and great parenting. 

And I think you’re going to find this really interesting.  We talk about free speech.  We specifically spoke about why he and Pauline Hanson abstained from the recent hate crimes bill and so much more. I think you’re going to really enjoy it. 

It goes a lot of directions over the course of nearly two hours. 

Make sure you like and subscribe.  Put a comment below as well, guys, because, you know, engaging with this kind of media helps people of power and influence like Malcolm know that the attention is now in places like this podcast, independent media. 

We are not paid. We don’t have sponsors.  We fund this ourselves.  And so, you know, your engagement shines a light on where they should go and be heard. 

So, with that said, please enjoy this discussion with Senator Malcolm Roberts. 

What is up everybody?  Welcome to this very special episode of Unemployable.  This is our second ever political interview.  The first one went absolutely nuts on YouTube.  Don’t mean to brag, but we outperformed both of the major parties by bringing none other than Senator Pauline Hanson, who at the time of this recording has gone to nearly 200,000 views on YouTube – absolutely blitzing any other political interview in the podcast space this cycle, which is really, really encouraging.  And today we have with us Senator Malcolm Roberts, who is also with One Nation. 

And just for the record guys, we have invited Albo on, we’ve invited Peter on, we’ve invited on a couple of independents.  We do have Gerard Rennick coming in as well.  So, it’s not that we are just playing One Nation. We happen to be very receptive to Nation’s message and I think all Australians leading into this election should be absolutely opening their minds and listening.  And that is the point of these long form podcasts. 

Mark Di Paola: Yeah, the listeners have been great and the comments on Instagram and what not have been great in suggesting guests as well.  So, if anyone, you know, we put the message out to Dutton and Albo, but if anyone has a contact to them. 

Adam Hudson: Yep. 

Mark Di Paola: Let them know. 

Adam Hudson:  We want to – I’d really like to talk to them as well.  I got a few hard questions.  I don’t think I’d like to come on here because they’re not going to be softballs, let me tell you that, but Senator Malcolm Roberts, thank you for coming in.  We really do appreciate it.  Thank you so much for your time.  Welcome. 

Malcolm ROBERTS:  Well, thank you for the welcome.  And first of all I want to say how much I appreciate the new independent people’s media, the truth media, the freedom media, because the other two forms of media – the anti-social media – social media is really anti-social and it’s censored.   And the other one is the globalist mouthpiece, Big Brother media, whatever you want, it’s owned. So, this is the only way we can get our voice out. So thank you so much for what you’re doing. 

Adam Hudson: Yeah.  One thing I noticed as soon as you walked in the studio just now and this is what gets lost in media of all kinds, we sit in a very privileged position here on the panel, being able to meet politicians face to face. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: What’s privileged about that? 

Adam Hudson: Well, what I mean is I get to look you in the eye.  A lot of people just see through a lens and when you meet Malcolm, for the listeners and those who are on Spotify, he looks you dead in the eye and he keeps your gaze.  And that’s something to be said for that and a firm handshake, and I love that in people generally.  I got the same from Pauline.  And it’s refreshing. 

So, I’m sure this pod’s going to be good because I’ve watched a lot of your clips. I’ve watched you go into Senate hearings, and I’ve watched you battle it out on the on the floor of Parliament in Australia.   
And I’ll say to you the same thing I said to Pauline, which was thank you, because we need people like you who are prepared to sit there, and I’ve watched the smug look on these politicians faces as you grill them thinking this guy’s just a conspiracy theorist extremist, and they’re kind of dismissing you. 

And I watch how you just let it go off your back and you just keep pushing them on the facts, on the point and you won’t let it go.  And I think the tide is turning.  And I think Australians more than ever are secretly laughing at the politicians who are looking down their noses at you, even though you’re a politician, but looking down their noses at you dismissively, like when is this clown going to stop talking – and the Australians watching are going, Malcolm, keep going, keep pushing these guys because so much trust has been lost in the last few years that I think there’s more swing vote now than there has been for a long time.  What’s your feeling out there in the electorate as you go out and talk to people? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: I get constantly bombarded wherever I go – thank you for what you’re doing and, which is really disturbing in a way, because they mean it and they’re saying keep going, but for someone to thank me for doing my job?  That shows how few people are doing their job.  So, it’s very encouraging, of course, but people definitely are starting to see that the two tired old parties, the Uni-Party is really just that – they’re not alternatives.  They’re both pushing the same basic policies, immigration, energy, climate, the same #$&!*%@*’s coming out of both of them. 

Mark Di Paola: It’s really interesting because Mark Bouris, who has more subscribers, you know – the Yellow Brick Road – has more subscribers than the Unemployable pod does, had Albo and Dutton on.  I think the Dutton podcast got 60,000 views and the Albo podcast got 20,000 views on YouTube – just YouTube, and ours I think is sitting at about 200,000 views with Pauline. 

Adam Hudson: With 1/10th of the subscriber base. 

Mark Di Paola: With 1/10th of the subscriber base.  So yeah, talk us through that a little bit more. Does it come down to people’s frustration with the two major parties, or what do you – how do you see it? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: The vote overall for the two tired old parties – if that’s a graph, it has gone from 95% to Labor and Liberal in a matter of a few decades ago to now 65% and falling.  People are swinging.  They’re starting to wake up.  It used to be the days of – oh, I’ll just go in and which one, Labor’s not doing good job, I’ll vote for Liberal, Liberal’s not doing good job, I’ll vote for Labor, but now they’re starting to wake up and are really starting to look at independents and minor parties. 

Mark Di Paola: Wow! I didn’t realise it swung that much. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, we’ve got a government Mark, in Albanese’s government, the Labor government, that has got less than 1/3rd of the vote, less than 1/3rd of the vote.  And what people don’t realise is that that they’re in cahoots – that’s in the lower house – in the Senate, they’re in cahoots with the Greens, which are the most destructive force in this country.  And they have to buy off a couple of independents every now and then to get things through the Senate.  We’ve had 205 bills dragged into the Senate and guillotined.  No debate or debate shut. Albanese is not a democratic Prime Minister. 

Mark Di Paola: I’m pretty interested in politics, I must say and I had no idea that he only had 1/3rd of the vote. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Just slightly under 1/3rd

Adam Hudson: Interesting.  There’s so much I want to dive into and I know from the comments that we’ve gotten when we’ve said we’ve got you coming on and since Pauline’s come on, the number one thing that we’re getting at the moment and we won’t address it now, we’ll address it at the right moment, but for the listeners because I know they’re sitting there going “ask why did they refrain from the free speech vote? You know that bill that went in and didn’t vote against that. We’ll get to that in a minute. So if you’re listening … 

Malcolm ROBERTS: I’d love to get to that. 

Adam Hudon: Yeah.  So don’t worry guys, we are going to cover that.  But I want to set this interview up before we get into the meat and potatoes because I think it’s really important to get some context about you.  You were born in Africa, right? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: India. 

Adam Hudson: Oh, sorry! India.  My mistake.  So born in Bengal, wasn’t it?  West Bengal? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: West Bengal. 

Adam Hudson: Yeah, India.  And you grew up a son of a coal miner.  You were a coal miner for a period of time.  So maybe just give us that.  And you’re an engineer by profession.  So maybe just give us that little bit of early background because of what I want to understand, I’ve watched you on many, many clips and you’ve got a dog in you that’s really strong.  And I love that. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: I’m being called a dog now. 

Adam Hudson: But you know what I mean? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: No, no, I, I get it.  Thank you for that.  That’s a compliment. 

Adam Hudson: That’s what I mean.  Absolutely is a compliment.  Like you are very, very strong on your opinions.  And I’d like to understand what is, where does that drive come from?  And I suspect it’s from a lifetime that’s now here in your political career.  But where, where are these beliefs forming and what led you to align yourself fully with Pauline?  Where’s that fire coming from? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: OK, I’ll have to remember all of those parts of the question.  I don’t know where the drive comes from.  I was born with it.  When I was under one I think, I was being taken, in Wales with my father’s parents, my grandparents and apparently Mum and Dad used to take me down a road and they’d take the right fork – this is less than one, and my grandparents took me for a walk one day and they took me down the left fork and I went (hand movement) the other way you know, so I’m not afraid to speak up. I get a bit nervous, like I’m nervous now. So, I still get nervous when I speak in the Senate.   But it’s like Pauline – the thing is that Pauline does not like fighting. She doesn’t like a fight. You can tell it in her voice.  I mean, she has first 30 seconds she’s nervous, speaks up with a high pitch, but then she relaxes into it.  One thing worse than a fight and that’s running away from a fight and so that’s why we’re both tentative in the sense that we’re not relaxed doing that, but we tell the truth, and we’ve got to do it because I just can’t live with myself if I don’t do it. So that came from my parents, I think. What else? 

Adam Hudson: How did you grow up?  Like where you did you grow up in a where did you grow up?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: The formative years – Maria Montessori, who’s the most powerful, the most eloquent – she’s dead now, she died about 85 in the 50’s I think – she had the most comprehensive understanding of human development and human behaviour.  And she said the critical years for the formation of both character and intellect, character and intellect, are birth to six.  So, my formative years were spent in India and I got, I mixed with Muslims, Hindis, Buddhists, probably atheists, Christians, so it didn’t matter where I was, I would talk to people and listen to them. The other thing that my mother taught me is that it’s very important to listen first, so we listen. And the other thing my father taught me is to be calm and factual. There’s no point in going off at people. It doesn’t do any good.  The strength comes from how you address the issue, not on what label you use and not on what abuse you give them and Pauline is much the same.  So, my approach is calm and factual. Let the lunatics do all the raving, carrying on.  When they’re finished, I’ll still be here.  Now what have you got to say?  So, I’ve used that with industrial relations.  One of the things that that surprised me – I graduated as a mining engineer and then I decided I better go and learn something. So, I worked as a coalface miner. I mean that sincerely.  I learned more as a coalface miner because mining is about people and it’s about different conditions underground. And conditions can change from like working in a car park in a parking station, really safe to treacherous within a metre. And sometimes we don’t even know it. So, you’ve got to rely upon people, and you’ve got to develop in people the skills and the accountability to take responsibility for themselves. And that means letting go. So, I don’t believe in micromanaging.  I believe in setting standards, laying down my expectations and then making sure that people can do their job, get out of their way. Because that’s the problem with a lot of managers in Australia. We’re rambling a bit here, but a lot of managers in Australia want to tell people how to do things and they miss the talent. And I guess that’s the other thing that I’m very, very pro human. We’ve had our dickheads, we’ve had our authoritarian rulers – Hitler, Stalin, Maurice Strong, who you might want to ask about, Chairman Mao, Morrison, Palaszczuk, these lunatics and I mean that, they’re lunatics, but the majority of people are absolutely wonderful. Humans are wonderful.  And the overriding traits in people are care. You’re only here because you care about what’s happening to our country, correct? 

Adam Hudson: Mmm hmm. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: And you want to do something about it and you want to give voice to the majority.  So, humans are absolutely wonderful.  And I’ve learned from my mother I suppose. that that’s the case.  So, we can’t trust everyone.  We can’t rely on everyone, but we’ve got to extend to them an opportunity to use their talent.  And that’s something that I found very, very important and I love – when I was managing Westworld’s End mine, when I arrived, it was in turmoil industrially. Every night the evening shift would have a stop work meeting and decide whether or not they’d go home or stay at work. And I thought, wow, this is strange.  Then I realised the previous manager was telling lies. So, they didn’t trust us. So, it took a lot of time for me to go underground, be with people because you can’t run a mine from the surface.  So, one day after about 18 months there, I was walking out to the car park, just on dark, and I remember just thinking, why am I happy? And I turned around behind me and looked at the coal stockpiles, record coal stockpiles, record production, safety statistics that were really, really very, very powerful. And I thought it’s not the record coal, it’s the fact that people come to work, get changed, put their mining gear on and go down the mine and come back out. And not always lack of argument because we still had our arguments, but they trusted and people when they’re allowed to do their job, they love doing their job. People are just wonderful.  

Adam Hudson: And they rely on leadership not to lie to them.   

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yes, and it’s not – leadership is not about just saying do whatever you want. Leadership is about saying here are the expectations I have for you and quite often developing those expectations together.  But ultimately, I’m representing the shareholder, I’m in charge of the mine. And I draw a line because we did have, when I first arrived there, we did have union delegates who were, they didn’t trust anyone. I had meetings with 10 delegates in the room, because there were five unions, they didn’t trust each other and each union had to bring two people because they didn’t trust their mate. So that was the level of trust.  Yeah, it’s shocking. So, there were a couple of times when I’d have to say – that’s it, we’ll take it to court.  And sometimes we just, you know, some people – I’d sack someone and for example, we sacked 8 people and after six months, all for good, documented reasons, and after six months, the mechanical engineer came to me and said, I didn’t know you could sack people in the mining industry.  If you have a reason and you give them notice and they don’t respond, of course you’ve got to.  So, it’s a matter of building trust and the union delegate in charge of the lodge, that’s the branch at the mine, he actually was up in arms within the first six months trying to intimidate me. So, I didn’t yield back. I didn’t scream, just calm and when he saw me just being calm, he would deflate like a big, big bag and then he was like putty. But he was a good guy, but he had a terrible reputation. And then two years later we went through massive retrenchments in the Hunter. He came to me and said, what do you need?  And we made some major changes that he got into trouble from with his with his national delegates. So, it’s just stunning because that’s what happens when trust comes. But you’ve got to have the standards in there and you must be prepared to enforce those standards. But you do it responsibly. 

Adam Hudson: A politician that has worked outside of Canberra.  That’s amazing. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, Pauline’s worked outside of Canberra. 

Adam Hudson: I know, I know. 

Mark Di Paola:  I was just about to say, trust and leadership is such an important topic and sometimes when we’ve previously spoken about politics on this show before having a politician on, people would say, why are you talking about politics – we’re tuning in because this is a business show and I think what people sometimes forget is that running a country is the biggest business in your economy.  You know, the American government is the biggest business in their economy.  The Australian government is the biggest business in our economy and sometimes it’s being run by people who don’t have business experience or don’t have the trust of the nation and that’s what we’re seeing at the moment.  You know, you’re seeing the Elon Musk thing.  I mean, that guy is the world’s richest person ever by a long shot.  Not because he’s stupid.  He must know something and he’s getting demonised, demonised. And it’s like, you know, we had a couple of people in the comments on the Pauline clips say, oh, ask her how her mate Gina is going.  And it’s like, why do we have that mentality?  We’re trying to tear down those partnerships.  I mean, don’t we want the best and the brightest and the most successful to help in whatever way possible, even if it is people who’ve had previous business experience coming into politics?  Don’t we want that? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Boy, there’s so much in that, Mark.  I strongly disagree with you that government is a business.  Governments should be there to create the environment so you can go and invest and do your job.  That’s what it is.  What we’ve got now is governments in control and we’ve got, and governments have long been whether they’re democratic or monarchs, monarchy or republican – Republic, and we are basically a Republic, but I diverge, and I’ll come back to that.  Governments have long been a source or a vehicle for people to control others, whether they’re in government themselves or whether they’re puppets for people outside.  Our country is being destroyed.  It’s not being governed, it’s being destroyed. And so, you’re right that most people in politics don’t understand business. They don’t understand that you have to create an environment.  You know that if you create a shitty environment, your people won’t respond.  I turn up to work, you turn up to work, everyone turns up to work with a heart, a mind and a pair of hands. And that’s basically the physical, the mental and the spiritual or emotional. And you’ve got to get people engaged.  

And how the hell can investors get engaged in this country and create new employment when they’re having their electricity sector destroyed in front of their eyes?  And based on a lie? How the hell when government comes in to mandate so many things that are destroying our productivity and destroying our productive capacity, how the hell can you get investors? What happens is you get foreign investors in because they’re not paying tax, many of them. They’re not paying company tax.  
So, you as a family person – I assume you’re a family person – you’re paying tax to keep these bastards here and you know the government – so I’m rambling a bit, but government is not a business. Government is an enabler and should get the hell out of the way and create the environment, create the tax … The most destructive system in our country is the tax system.  

Mark Di Paola: So, if you don’t like the analogy that the government is like a business, what is the answer to allowing government to more properly govern?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Government has three basic responsibilities, three basic roles – protect life (security), protect property (again security … ) and protect freedom. Because one of the things that is really disturbing me is that, well, I’ll tell you a story – I’ve been chasing this climate fraud since 2007 and  I went around the country quite often, met up with Bob Carter, who’s dead now, but he was a professor, climatologist, paleoclimatologist, wonderful man, retired, doing this work voluntarily just like I was. And one day he said to me in a break, “you know mate, this is the biggest scam ever”. I said, Bob it’s not even close and he said, “what do you mean?”  I said it is a big scam, but a far bigger scam is the money scam, the ability to print more money. If you did it, you’d go to jail, but the banks can do it. So, he said, “oh, yeah, you’ve got a point. There’s no doubt about that – that’s a much bigger scam”. And I said, but there’s a bigger one – that’s the anti-human scam. 

The Club of Rome in the 1960’s started pushing the anti-human scam. They did it subtly and by saying your first duty is to protect the planet and everyone is like “oh yeah”.  It’s not.  Your first duty is to enhance your species, contribute to your species and the species, first of all, we must realise the truth about our species. Our species is not lazy, incompetent, dishonest, irresponsible, uncaring. We are the complete opposite on all of those things – I’m starting to get a bit fired up because I’m passionate. 

Hosts: It’s okay. 

Malcolm ROBERTS:  We are destroying these people.  From this age (hands spread) we’re telling them they are incompetent, dishonest, lazy, irresponsible, that their species doesn’t care – you’ve got to protect the planet. Then yeah, so that’s destroying the future leaders of our country. And then they’re saying your number one job is to protect the planet because civilization and the environment are mutually exclusive. That is complete bullshit.  If we want a future as a civilization, we have got to protect the environment. If we want to protect the environment, we’ve got to have civilization. You go to any country in the world, Mark, and you will find that the countries that are developed have a cleaner environment and are more aware of protecting the environment. And so, it’s not a matter of saving the environment or civilization, because some of these people are pushing climate fraud want us back in the dark ages. It’s a matter of saying we want both because they’re mutually dependent. And so, your job is to protect, is to enhance the human species as a member of our species. But to do that, you have to protect the environment. So, what I’m saying is it should be a very positive, very wonderful message and yet our kids are being bombarded, our adults are being bombarded with decades of bullshit about how we’re a bad species.  

Mark Di Paola: There’s so much in that but it’s, you can just see when you’ve got the kids destroying artwork and tying themselves to different things. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: And cutting bits of pieces off themselves. 

Mark Di Paola: And just doing crazy things. And it’s like they didn’t just wake up one day and decide to do that. It’s social conditioning that’s led them to believe that that’s the way to make a difference in the world. And anyone with a few years of maturity realises that’s not how you inflict any change. Even if you do believe in climate change, that’s not how you make change.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: It encourages virtue signalling because what they’re doing, Mark, when you look at it, they’re always creating a victim, the left, and then there becomes a perpetrator.  So, you’re a white male – you’re a perpetrator.  And that’s what they’ve done deliberately so that they can set us up against any minority group they want to. 

Adam Hudson: Constantly apologising for turning up anywhere.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah.  

Adam Hudson: You know, call to country, something that happens at all these major sporting events. What’s your position on that?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: I don’t need to be welcomed to my own country. And I know a lot of Aboriginals say exactly the same thing. They say it’s rubbish.  

Adam Hudson: So that’s my point as well – and I say to people, you know, like Mark’s child, his little daughter was born here in the same way the first Aboriginal child was born here. So why is one more entitled than the other through spiritual providence that they turned up on this land, right? Why should one have to do that.  I don’t get it – that’s her home. 

And that’s not saying that we shouldn’t care for the native Australian Aboriginal people and that we shouldn’t provide them services and programmes.  I just think that the two things are not – they get conflated together and they’re completely different things.  One is, like you said, is the virtue signalling that creates this negativity or this pessimism. 

Adam Hudson: Which is ruining the country. 

Mark Di Paola: Which is ruining the country.  It’s creating a divide. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Look at our NRL, look at our AFL. The elites in both those …  are Aboriginals. The proportion of Aboriginals in the country is about 3% and it’s now climbing to about 5% because a lot of whites are registering as Aboriginal. 

Host: Right, because of the incentives. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah because of the incentives.  Yes, that’s true, but in the AFL and the NRL it’s way above 3%, way above 5%.  If you look at the Parliament, it’s 11% Aboriginal or part Aboriginal. So there – when we say the Aboriginals need help – don’t set them apart from anyone else because what you’re actually doing is saying you can’t get on without that. We’ve got Warren Mundine, we’ve got Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, we’ve got Karen Little – wonderful, wonderful humans, wonderful contributors, wonderful Australians. They don’t need help, and they will tell you they don’t need help, but what they want is a fair go. And what’s happened is, again the same thing, wealth transfer.  Government is there to transfer wealth illegally.  So, what they do is they set up the inferior people and automatically Aboriginals then start being bashed with the fact that they’re with the nonsense, the myth that they’re inferior, which is a terrible way to try and help people. But when you go into the communities, you find the white and black aboriginal industry has got its claws around everything. And so, the billions and it is literally billions of dollars, somewhere up around $40   billion, but at least $25 – $30 billion spent, and most of the money goes to the black and white aboriginal industry. I said white and black.  Consultants, lawyers, bureaucrats, politicians – they don’t get the money – activists, academics, they’re feeding off this. And you walk into the communities and the people in the communities, the Aboriginal communities, the remote community say “why don’t we get any help?”  And so, the other thing is I was told by a Councillor up in Bardoo Island in Torres Strait, he said, “mate, the people on the Closing the Gap gravy train do not want to close the gap because they get money while the gap is there”. We have gone backwards in the gap in the last few years.  

Mark Di Paola: It’s kind of like the NDIS service provider, isn’t it?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah, it is but think of the people that are missing out by the white and black aboriginal industry stealing that money, misappropriating that money. We’ve got white and black people getting very, very wealthy, but the people on the ground not getting it.  

Adam Hudson: Yeah, well … 

Malcolm ROBERTS: But they’ve created victims, and you don’t say to an Aboriginal you’re a victim because people, white or black will fall into the victimhood status. That’s crippling. 

Adam Hudson: It’s interesting you mentioned the role of government is to protect life, property and freedom.  

Mark Di Paola: Yeah.  

Adam Hudson: And I think in the last five years with what we went through with COVID and so on, if I give a scorecard to our government on protecting life and protecting our freedoms and what they did to the accessibility of property to a lot of people, it’s a disaster. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: It’s negative. Oh my God, they killed people. It was homicide.  

Adam Hudson: Yeah. Like, it’s like a you couldn’t get a worse score. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: No 

Adam Hudson: I mean, I don’t know where to start to talk about stuff because like there’s the COVID stuff that we can talk about. There’s the …  I want to get into all of that. I want to get into your views on the mismanagement of COVID and the gross egregious breaches of freedom that have pissed off so many Australians. And I think either of the two political majors need to start with an apology to the Australian people for what they put this country through and the damage they did. It’ll never come. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: We’re working on it.  

Adam Hudson: Oh my God. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: We’re not going to give up on that one.  

Adam Hudson: And a royal Commission into what happened. I don’t know.  What’s your suggestion with …, because I think a lot of Australians have lost trust as a result of what went on.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, the irony is, Adam, I’ve noticed this in private sector. I’ve noticed it in many places. The irony is that people say the boss is a dickhead, the boss is irresponsible, the boss is dishonest, you can’t trust politicians. Then where do they turn when something goes wrong? They become dependent on the boss. They automatically genuflect to the boss or the politicians. That’s one of the fundamental problem. Our country is a constitutional monarchy. It’s not a monarchy. Monarchy is where the king or queen has absolute power and says this is what you’re going to do Mark, gives you orders, makes all the rules, makes all the regulations. A constitutional monarchy is one where you have a constitution that is the supreme governing instrument. And that is the case in our country.  And the monarch in our country and I think it’s one, I used to criticise the monarchy because I don’t believe people should get a title because of their parents. But then what I realised is you look at the alternative, a president, and quite often that’s based on corruption. Who can spend the most money. I’m not saying that about Trump. Trump is wonderful. But so, and a constitutional monarchy, we’ve got the King or Queen of Britain acting as our monarch under the constitution. Their role is prescribed in the constitution.  They’re subordinate to the constitution. They have to serve. And Queen Elizabeth’s did a marvellous job of that.  Their powers are in reserve powers. If something happens then they can do this. So, we actually run the show. When I say we, I don’t mean the politicians, I mean the people of Australia, who … our country is the only country in the world in which the constitution was voted on by the people before it came in. Did you know that?  

Hosts: No. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: I didn’t know that till six years ago. Who are the only people who can change the constitution? The people through a referendum. So, who’s in charge? Who elects the government?  The people. Democracy in this country, like most of the Western countries, has become a passive sport, a passive activity. We need – a democracy can only survive and thrive when it’s active. So not only, I’m not just talking about voting, I’m talking about being pissed off with the parties, with your representative, making sure that they are representing you properly, holding them accountable. That might mean letters, it might mean turning up to their office.  

Mark Di Paola: It’s the freedom to be able to have the conversation. And, you know, one of the things that really has just killed my faith in our leaders is these misinformation and disinformation bills and all these bills that they’re just trying to ram through to stop people like us simply speaking about … 

Adam Hudson: Our thoughts.  

Mark Di Paola: Our thoughts, yeah. Yeah. On what we think, the problems that Australia is facing. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: You can’t even question. You can’t even question, let alone think.  

Mark Di Paola: And that’s a really like, that’s a really scary place for me.  

Adam Hudson: I think that freedom of speech, we can jump into that quickly because in order to have a functioning democracy, you need to be able to speak and share ideas.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yep.  

Adam Hudson: And if they are successful and you’ve done a wonderful job of highlighting the fact that they will sneak through what appears to be a harmless thing that nobody could vote against, like for example … 

Malcolm ROBERTS: The misinformation and disinformation?  Who could go against that? 

Adam Hudson:  Yeah, or children accessing social media. We all of course worry about kids’ addiction to social media. And it’s hard to vote against NDIS, right? What politician in Australia can get elected by saying we should stop funding people with disabilities because it’s so unpopular to defund that. I’m not saying we should defund it. I’m just saying it’s a very difficult bill to overturn because of the nature of it. But if we can’t speak and just to finish that point, they sneak these bills through and then they, we lose this freedom and then they use it as a Trojan Horse kind of thing. Free speech. I’d love to hear your thoughts on, in your language, the importance of free speech and how that’s under threat right now. And then I want to actually ask the question about why you guys abstained from the vote, even though I know and many people know that you are pro free speech by a mile.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: We are the leaders in that fight. We are the absolute leaders in that fight. 

Adam Hudson: So that’s why it is so important.  For the average punter out there, why is it, like I said to Pauline, why should a Pakistani immigrant be funding your defence against that Pakistani minister? Like why? Why should they care about free speech even if they really disagree with what you said?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Let’s go right back to basics. Our universe is based on freedom. It evolves freely. 

Nature is free to do whatever she or he, whatever you want to call it, wants to do, and it evolves freely.  The universe is free.  The stars are free.  The planets are free.  Animals, plants are free.  The universe is based on freedom. It’s a model. We are not part of the universe; we are of the universe. 

We’re one with the universe, so we are inherently – when you were born, you were granted every freedom there is just by being born. And people have long, long from the human condition, the ego,  

wants to come along and have control over you.  So, the constant battle is not left versus right. 

That’s a distraction, that’s a lie, That’s a diversion.  The battle is better looked at between freedom and control and always beneath control by the way, there is fear.  So, people who seek to control are afraid.  What are they afraid of?  Well, there are many things they’re afraid of, but let’s go to have a look at freedom.  Let’s go beyond freedom of speech, Adam.  Freedom is in freedom of thought, freedom of faith.  You can believe whatever you want to in terms of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association, who you mix with, freedom of exchange, who you exchange agreements with, who you trade with, freedom of movement, freedom of political assembly.  There are so many freedoms. There’s about 10 of them – I can’t remember the rest of them.  But that is what freedoms about.  It’s about liberty.  And as the American Constitution or the American Bill of Rights says, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it’s fundamental to people. And that came from the universe. 

It came from – I happen to think there’s a God, if you don’t, but it came from the universe – it came from God.  You were born with it.  And the human condition is a fight to try and take some of that away from you.  That’s what it is. It’s a battle between control and freedom.  So, the primary freedom of the one I missed – how could I miss it – is the freedom of life, the right to live.  Okay and that’s being destroyed in our country, in many Western countries.  So, the primary freedom is the freedom of life, the freedom to exist and the primary vehicle for that is freedom of speech.  So, you can – all the other freedoms come from that freedom of speech.  So that’s why freedom of speech is so important.  It ignites everything. 

Adam Hudson: Yeah, and people say, even my wife and I when … and she goes, I think that hate speech thing is good.  People shouldn’t be able to say horrible things.  And I’m like, I, you know, no, because … 

Mark Di Paola: Freedom of speech is not – it’s not determining who can say what – it’s being sure that nobody can control who can’t.   

Adam Hudson: Well, that’s what I said to her.  Like it all comes down to who’s the arbiter of what defines hate speech, right?  And that’s why I personally – I’ve said it before, I’d rather know what somebody really thinks, even if I don’t, in fact especially if I don’t agree, because then I know. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yes. And that’s something that’s so important.  You can call me short.  Now you can call me a runt.  You can call me any kind of name you want. You cannot give offence. 

I can take offence. That is my choice. There’s nothing wrong with being short, right, Mark? 

Mark Di Paola: It’s the best thing in the world. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: I mean, we’re actually not short, we’re normal – these bastards are tall. 

Adam Hudson: He’s … 

Host: I’m in between. 

Mark Di Paola: Don’t know what’s in the water for these other guys. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: So, when we “protect” people because of – from being labelled, being called names, we are undermining their very being.  Call me anything you like.  When you call me something that’s not based on – not a statement based on data and fact, it shows that you haven’t got an argument.  So, you can call me a anti-vaxxer, a conspiracy theorist, tinfoil hat bearer, and all  

I have to say to you is, well, thank you very much for just admitting that I’ve won the argument. 

Because if you had an argument, had the data, you would have given it to me in a logical structure. 

But you haven’t. You’ve given me a label – you’ve just lost the argument. 

Mark Di Paola: Sticks and stones. 

Adam Hudson: Yeah, that’s a very important point, though. Label in place of facts. And this is what’s happened in the world like – that people just want a simple label that they can just, oh, that’s right, labelled sorted. They don’t actually want to think. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Left, right.  What they do then is, oh, I’m emotionally attached to the left, I’m emotionally attached to the right.  I don’t think – I just go into battle, but that’s rubbish because you’re missing out on so much.  So, it’s control versus freedom. 

Mark Di Paola: I agree with that.  I think the problem largely comes from the fact that problem solving and critical thinking isn’t taught in schools and so it’s just easier for people to side with the left or the right or whatever because people are being taught to memorise, and they’re not being taught to think critically.  You’re obviously a person that has thought critically about things.  It seems like you’ve got some spiritual leanings as well.  So, there’s an open-minded thread to everything that you look into. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, that’s the way the universe is, right?  So, if I try to control – controlling things shows that I’m afraid.  Controlling things shows that I lack the courage to just stand up and say what I think.  So, that’s I’m opposed to control.  Now see, I’m still nervous at the moment and that shows me that I’ve got something going on in my mind.  So, about 2021 I did my first day of Vipassana meditation course, it’s actually 11 days – the most intense thing I’ve ever done.  But every morning I sit down for an hour and 10 minutes in the morning, and I try to – I’d love to do it for an hour and 10 minutes in the evening, which is what the practise is – it’s non-sectarian, it’s non-religious.  But I try to do 15 minutes in the evening before I go to bed, but my wife wants to talk to me for some reason. So, I try and respect that. But when I first did Vipassana, I was very fit, physically able, very strong, no fat on me, but it was the most intense thing I’d ever done, sitting still for an hour and eventually when I first arrived at Vipassana meditation, it’s a 2500-year-old practise.  The Buddha started it, but it’s not Buddhist.  He, you know, he said this is a wonderful practise for just developing consciousness. And it’s a very simple meditation.  There’s no rituals or anything like that. It’s just being with your – it’s basically, this sounds weird but scanning your body and going through – and you pick up little sensations here and there that you didn’t know about.  And what happens is if you – if I call you a name or make a threat to you, you will feel it somewhere in your body – might be diaphragm, might be a sphincter, might be your buttocks, whatever.  And that’ll drive you. So, you’re not choosing your response to me.  But if I can say “shit I’m feeling really tight in the diaphragm or sphincter” or whatever it is, and I can go why? That’s my stuff going on underneath from when I was a child.  Because the other thing – another thing that Maria Montessori said is that we don’t start developing, and this is proven now, we don’t start developing our intellectual reasoning skills and our knowledge of the world until about nine and then we start developing that. So, what it means is that the primary user for the formation of both character and intellect is birth to six.  So, at six, you’re pretty much locked in, but you haven’t started thinking yet. You haven’t started reasoning yet. So, Adam wasn’t created by God. Your being was created by God. Adam was fabricated by you during a very ignorant time of your life.  Birth to six and then that’ll determine in a large proportion. Mark, your responses to threats, your responses to the world, how you see the world. Do I see myself as incompetent? Do I see myself as vulnerable? Do I see myself as whatever I see? And then I’ve got to look beneath that. So, when I first started meditating, it was excruciating. I didn’t know how I would finish the 10 days, the 11 days but I got through it, and I got a little voice going on inside my head saying you can do it, you can do it. And it wasn’t my inner talk, it was something else.  

Adam Hudson: It’s a silent retreat, right? So, you don’t talk. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: You don’t talk for 11 days or 10 days, the first 10 days. Because when we talk, when someone says something to you or even gestures to you, you interpret that – that dickhead, why did he do that, you know? And so, that judgement just clouds almost everything we do.  And so, you might do something to me or with me, my judgement based upon my zero to six, then interprets that and then puts it onto me saying, he’s telling me I’m incompetent, he’s telling me my whatever.  That points to my insecurities, not your nastiness.  

Adam Hudson: Let’s move back.  I just want to move back while – we got really close to that freedom of speech thing and I just want to close that loop, because for a guy that is so pro freedom and so freedom of speech, a lot of people are up in arms about the abstaining from the freedom of speech, you know, hate speech bill.  So can you just give us the context on what that bill was for that vast majority of Australians that don’t follow politics closely. What was the bill? What happened with the voting and why did you abstain from it? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: OK, first of all, you’re spreading misinformation. 

Adam Hudson: Okay. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: It’s a hate crime bill.  That’s the title of the bill.  

Adam Hudson: Yeah. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: A lot of people think it’s a hate speech bill. The second thing is that we had very good reasons. Pauline and I tossed it around – it was introduced very quickly and rushed through. So, we would normally oppose a bill for on that basis alone. Senator Rennick told a lie.  He came on to – as soon as the bill was done, he came out and said words to this effect – “One Nation has joined with the Liberals and Labor Party in supporting the bill.”  That is a complete lie – complete lie. We abstained, as you said. Then other people piled on. Clive Palmer piled on with lies. He made two statements. He said we supported the bill. That is false. We did not support the bill. We totally opposed it.  Then he also said it’s a hate speech bill. It’s not. And that’s what people have been pushing. If you look at what we’ve actually done in the freedom space, Pauline was the first to move a motion in the Senate as part of the first step of getting a committee to develop the terms of reference for a referendum on enshrining freedom of speech in the Constitution, Because it’s not in the Constitution. It’s implicitly there because of High Court rulings, but it’s not in the Constitution. And what happened during COVID fraud was, was completely wrong. So then, so we oppose the guillotining of the bill cutting – that means cutting of debate.  We opposed the bill itself because it was so poorly worded and some of the provisions like mandatory sentences, but even then – in the morning, Pauline was asked a question at a media conference: do you support mandatory sentencing? Well, in some ways we do support mandatory sentencing as a concept.  Forget about the bill for a minute. As a concept, for example, for terrorist crimes.  We’re tired of weak judges, but generally we’re opposed to the mandatory sentencing.  But she said in her response she will consider the mandatory sentencing. So that was labelled as her agreement – she doesn’t agree with it. So, there are many misrepresentations. So, that bill was about saying that you cannot threaten someone based upon their associations with a group, whether it be disability, because there are people threatening people with AIDS, for example. There are many different groups. Religion is another one. Many people are being threatened because of their religion. We can’t live in Australia in a free society with that kind of thing going on.  We can’t have threats of physical violence, threats of physical force. That is completely un-Australian. So, Pauline and I sat there and thought, what the hell do we do? Because normally with a bill that’s guillotined and a bill that we don’t like, it’s straight out oppose and then we said, hang on a minute, what about the signal we’re sending to the people who actually need this protection?  We want to send a signal saying we will consider aspects of the bill, so we will abstain. And so many people have piled on saying we supported the removal of freedom of speech. We did not. It’s a hate crimes bill to protect Australians against physical violence, physical threats, force being used. And we wanted to say we like that. So, we didn’t want to just trash the bill altogether. But we absolutely detest and do not support the detailed provisions in that bill. But it’s not a hate speech bill. 

Adam Hudson: Yeah, so it a case of – its nuanced and you couldn’t vote for or against the entirety of the bill. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, we could have. 

Adam Hudson: No, I mean, you could have, but there are aspects that you’re probably for and aspects that you’re probably not. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: One aspect that we’re for and that is the concept that Australians need to live in safety and security free from physical threats, violence and use of force.  So that was the nuance. Now there are some good people – Alex Antic, Ralph Babett, who came to me and said what’s your stance? And Alex – Alex and I get on really well.  So does Ralph – I think Ralph’s really good. 

Adam Hudson: Ralph’s trying to get it enshrined in the Constitution as well. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, he’s following in Pauline’s footsteps.  He’s trying a different approach because he’s trying to introduce it as a bill. We went through – the only way we can get it in the Constitution is go through a referendum. So, we went through the legally proper way.  But because it was a motion, it was voted against by the Greens, the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the Nationals, from memory.  When you introduce a bill, which is what Ralph’s done, then very rarely do people oppose it.  So, Ralph won’t get anywhere with it, but he’s sending a signal, just like we did with abstaining.  There’s another point I was going to mention in there … anyway. 

Adam Hudson: Do you think we’re a danger of seeing our mildly racist grandpa getting arrested in their house just like we saw in the UK for making a comment on Facebook?  That free speech has just gone out the window in Australia, like in the UK and people are getting – like teachers are getting arrested for saying, you know there are only two genders, that kind of stuff? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: We are in danger of that.  When you’ve got a premier like Dan Andrews bringing in – yeah, it’s almost like vomiting rather than laughing, Mark, not having a go at you. 

Mark Di Paola: I lived in Melbourne during that time, so. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Dan Andrews government brought in the affirmation laws, which mean that – this is one of the things that I’m really passionate about – the parenting responsibilities and duties have been completely undermined.  And many parents don’t see that.  They’ve been done subtly but pervasively, just like so many other things.  So, if I had a son who is, you know, four, five, fourteen years of age and he came to me and said, Dad, I want to be a girl. Let’s say, “mate, you know, first of all, that quite often happens, it’s not uncommon for that to happen in adolescence. People just going through lots of changes hormonally. So, let’s sit down and talk about it”.  That’s what he wants. He’s upset about something else. So, you don’t change the topic. You just say: let’s discuss it, connect with him, listen to him, support him, say he’s okay for doing that and then get to the bottom and the only way you can get to the bottom of that is by listening to him.  He needs to feel heard. And quite often he will just say, no that’s not really, you know.  If it persists and it’s really strong because he’s being indoctrinated at school, which is the case in many, many occasions, then what you might do is bring in some counsellors. But it’s your job to protect him rather than just say, yeah, mate, cut your dick off or to a girl, cut your breasts off.  That’s wrong. Now, if you stand up and actually have that conversation with your child and question your child’s desire to change sex, then you are guilty of not affirming their desire and you can go to jail in Victoria. You can go to jail. And yet imagine what – and so what happens is a lot of parents, and I mean quite a few parents, are afraid, not only because of that, but because of the gender transformation, has become a cult. As gender dysphoria is a completely natural thing.  People are not happy with their gender. So let them work their way through it.  By the time they get to eighteen, certainly by the time they get to twenty-five , they say: oh, geez, I’m glad I didn’t cut my dick off, you know? But the other thing is there are only two genders, two sexes, male and female.  With a male, you’ve got an XY chromosomes, with a female, double X chromosomes. You cannot change that. So, when you affirm someone and they cut off their bits and pieces, you’re trapping them in something they’re not very comfortable with at heart.  And the majority of the suicides come from people who were told it’s okay Adam, you can reverse your transition. It’s a complete lie. You cannot reverse your transition. You are buggered for life because in well, the critical years for the formation of life, character and intellect are birth to six. In adolescence we go through myelinisation of the brain, enormous changes going on, the physical changes as well, but also mental changes. You start playing with that, with puberty blockers and you know, oestrogen and testosterone, you’re going to screw up the people and then when they’re wanting to have kids later, they might come back to being the gender they were in the first place, but even if they haven’t cut the bits and pieces off, they can’t have kids. 

Mark Di Paola: I think it’s, I think what you’re saying as well, and what I’ve heard a lot from people in the know is that when we’re going, like you just said, scientifically, when we’re going through that age, we are unsure about ourselves. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah. 

Mark Di Paola: Not just our genders. We are just unsure about ourselves when we’re going through puberty. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yep, and you’re flooded with hormones. 

Mark Di Paola: All these hormones like when a woman is pregnant, she’s flooded with hormones and her mood may change because of the hormones, whatever, whatever those moods are, positive or negative. The same thing happens when kids are going through puberty, there’s a whole bunch of changes that are going on internally leading us to be unsure about what’s happening and who we are. The fact that that’s been linked to gender seems like more fashion than it is science. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: You nailed it.  That’s exactly what it is.  But there’s also … 

Mark Di Paola:  Like, how can people say that I want to be considered a cat or I’m a furry or like, that’s … preference. 

Adam Hudson: I think we’re moving out of this madness, to be honest. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah, we are.  And Trump is a big, big part of that. 

Mark Di Paola: But the point is, is that it is normal.  Like you were saying. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah.  And if you look, Adam, at what happened in the Senate, the Greens first started talking about this madness.  And what they do normally is they, they not only talk about the madness, but they then say, if you don’t agree, you’re anti, you’re … 

Mark Di Paola: They demonise you. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: What is it?  Transphobic? 

Mark Di Paola: Transphobic. 

Adam Hudson: They label you. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: So, you want to shut up?  Well, I realised very early, and I was the first one to speak out consistently against this, and what happened was the Greens would have four or five speakers speaking for it and I’d oppose it. 

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Malcolm ROBERTS: And then bit by bit more jumped in – Canavan, Renick, Antic, Hanson, a very big one on this.  We had parents coming to see us, Babet was another one.  And the last time this was raised in the Senate, it was to do with a bill that we cosponsored to stop the federal government spending money on any trans – attempts to change gender.  And I spoke first – and I said, I looked across at the Greens and said “you’re the people that are causing kids to suicide because they changed their bits and pieces and they realise it’s not reversible and they commit suicide.”  And that was the first time they had been accused of suicide, causing suicide. And Nick McKim came up and he jumped up and he spoke a whole lot of bullshit.  He just went off.  His speech was so embarrassing that I posted it on my website.  They have no facts to go by. And he was the last of the Green speakers, one speaker and then up came the others, on our side. So, we had five speakers against their one. So, we had reversed the tables. Now I’m not trying to claim sole credit for that, but initially people were afraid of speaking up against it because they’d be labelled transphobic.  You had the Australian New Zealand Psychologist or Psychiatrist Association come out last year and saying affirmation is the completely wrong treatment for gender dysphoria. Well hello, where were you for the last years? But they waited until we gave them space to be able to say that.  So, a lot of doctors were bullied and intimidated into it because they’d be called transphobic if they didn’t just go along with it. 

Mark Di Paola: Just to be clear as well, I’m not saying and I don’t think you’re saying that gender dysphoria … 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Dysphoria? 

Mark Di Paola: Doesn’t exist.  We’re agreeing that it exists. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: We’re saying it does exist. 

Mark Di Paola: We’re saying that it exists.  We’re saying that affirmation is not the correct way treatment. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: And it became very significant when some of the gender clinics in overseas were shut down, the largest in the world, I think was Tavistock in Britain, that have been doing things automatically.  And they have now got the large class action suit against them.  Sweden, I think Finland, they’re shutting these clinics down and what we’re doing is opening them up in this country. 

So, it’s also important to understand, Mark, that there is a tiny, tiny, tiny proportion of people who are hermaphrodites.  They’re genuinely – they’ve got bits and pieces of both sexes in them.  So, the way to look after them is not to pillory and confuse kids. The way to look after them is just understand them and love them and respect them as humans.  That’s all people want. 

Eric Machado: Yeah.  You mentioned earlier trust and leadership. Now where do you feel, at the moment, in Australian politics that trust is being broken and leadership is lacking?  I know you probably have a long list, but what are some of the top things that you’re seeing? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: COVID, the anti-human lie, the belief that government can solve everything, every major problem in this country, Eric, comes out of Parliament House, Canberra – every major problem.  There are a few that come out of the state parliaments, but the federal government worsens them.  There’s another one, climate.  That’s a lie.  We have – I’ve done research on climate now for since 2007.  I’ve got an incredible colleague just South of Canberra. His IQ is off the scale, but more importantly, he’s very, very practical. He’s the sort of guy who says “I think I’ll build myself a magnetic levitation train” and you’re going what? And then – he doesn’t mean he’ll buy a few parts off eBay and assemble them.  He means going to his lathe and making them. This guy is off the scale when it comes to intelligence, but he’s very, very practical.  He loves research. He’s just inquisitive. He’s been that way ever since he was a boy, but he researches nature, he researches food, he researches climate. So, when he saw me flogging away on this thing he came and said I’ll help you. He developed computer programmes. He’s a computer programmer, but he’s also a wonderful human. He’s a Renaissance man. He can dabble in everything, and he wrote programmes to go into major sites around the world and scrape their climate data out – all legal – scrape that climate data. He’s amassed 24000 data sets on climate and energy. Not only does he do that, he then goes into statistical books, statistic books and works out ways of assembling them, combining them, mixing and matching them, and Mark and Eric, there is not a single climate factor – temperature, rainfall, drought severity, duration frequency, storm severity, duration frequency anywhere in the world that shows there is a change in climate.  

Eric Machado: Why are they pushing it? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Control and wealth transfer, is what they want.  And if you look at Maurice Strong, I wouldn’t mind talking about him in a minute.  Maurice Strong is the father of global warming in the 1970’s and then he became the father of the transformation to global climate change. They’re pushing it for control and wealth transfer. They want to control how we develop and what we can and can’t you. They’re wanting it also for funding the United Nations budget. At the moment, the United Nations relies upon donations, grants from member countries, particularly the United States. But what they want to do is develop their own budget so they’re independent and that’s what carbon tax, carbon dioxide taxes are eventually meant for.  They also want to look after parasitic bureaucrats, sorry parasitic billionaires and corporations that are going to feed off this. The major banks – Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Rothschilds Bank in Australia – their advisory boards included what was her name, the previous CSIRO chief executive – conflict of interest!  But the banks were looking at huge money exchanging, carbon dioxide credits, money and wealth transfer and what you’ve got, and these are not just my words, these are the words and admissions of the senior UN bureaucrats, including Christiana Figueres, who was head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC -she said this is about transforming the global economy, the economic world order and what they want to do is bring in socialism. Maurice Strong, as I said, he fabricated this.  Incredible intellect, incredible manipulator of people. He said he had two aims in life. One is to put in place an unelected socialist global government. These people are not our friends.  The second one was to deindustrialize Western civilisation. Get rid of these things (holds up mobile phone), get rid of our technology, get rid of this, get rid of what we’re seeing around us. These people are anti human and their practises, and their words are showing that. 

Adam Hudson: So, if they wanted to find, if I wanted to Google, is that true that those were his two aims in life, where would I find that information to confirm that?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: I’ve forgotten where I found it, but I checked it myself back in around 2007-2008. 

Adam Hudson: The guy’s name is what? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Maurice. M A U R I C E.  Strong. S T R O N G.  

Adam Hudson: So, verify guys.  Go out and look this up yourself, you know, and try to dig to this. Don’t just listen to Malcolm – do the work.  

Mark Di Paola: A lot of people give us flack about not fact checking it. But really like you were saying earlier, the responsibilities is on the listeners.  

Adam Hudson: So, this is a pretty evil dude, right? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: He is a very evil dude, but very, very slick. He was, he did, Maurice Strong, the most – oh where do you start?  The most significant thing – look up until about 1850, the middle of the start of the industrial revolution. Prior to that, our species were scratching around in the dirt, subject to famine, subject to all kinds of variations in weather, right? Very vulnerable. Then we developed hydrocarbon fuel – coal, oil and natural gas. They’re not fossil fuel, they’re hydrocarbon fuels. They’re combinations of hydrogen atoms and carbon atoms and they liberated humanity and the real price of energy until we started this climate crap was on a relentless decrease. The lower you get your price of energy, the more productive you are. Automatically.  The more productive you are, the more wealth and prosperity you have. And it’s not just the few billionaires who used to control the money, even though Rockefeller made a lot of money, everyone in society was lifted dramatically from 1850 to 1996.  Everyone!  We have never seen the human race move so much, and now we’ve seen China in just a space of 40 years emerge with material wealth.  Now we’re seeing India in on it and those countries want hydrocarbon fuel because they know that’s what the secret is.   

Mark Di Paola: And cheap energy? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Cheap energy, but it’s also reliable. See what we’ve done up until the use of hydrocarbon fuels, coal, oil and natural gas, we were dependent on nature. We were dependent on beasts of burden; we were dependent on slaves. We were dependent on wind, solar, not solar as we know it today, but solar through crops. And if you had a prolonged drought, you’re buggered, that’s it, people died from famines.  Now we can store water, we can build dams, we can build clean water supply systems. So even the – for example – the dramatic improvement in health is due to that –  

Adam Hudson: All energy related? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: All energy related, it pervades, pervades everything. Now in 1996, John Howard came to power, and he said we will not comply. We will not sign the UN Kyoto agreement. I mean, you can check this out. And everyone went clap, clap, clap. But he said we will comply with it. What’s that mean? So, what he did was he started to reverse the cost of energy. Instead of relentlessly falling, he reversed it, which is reversing human progress. But what he also did was he recognised in 1996 the UNS Kyoto climate protocol came in 1997, all based on ********.  And what happens is when you’re at these gab fests, when you’re at Parliament House, you know, how a lot of people are sheep. There’s no difference amongst doctors, there’s no difference amongst politicians, there’s no difference amongst the political leaders from around the world who congregate and they just, they’re afraid to say sorry, but there’s no evidence for this. So, what he did was he put in place a renewable energy target, which we’re now seeing is destroying our electricity grid. We’ve gone from being the cheapest electricity in the world to the most expensive. Among the most expensive. He put in place the national electricity market, which is not a market, it’s a racket. It’s ********. It’s not a free exchange of, of electricity. It’s ruled by the bureaucrats who favour solar and wind. No doubt about it.  

Adam Hudson: This is what’s pushing price of everything up as well, right?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Then they say, oh, solar and wind are the cheapest. Well, why have we got record amounts of solar and wind and our and our prices are the highest they’ve ever been? Every country around the world, if that’s a graph of electricity price and percentage of solar, as you get more solar in, you get a higher price. Every country that’s done significant changes, John Howard brought that in, but here’s what he did. The liberals are supposed to – one of the things that they will die on the Hill for is secure property rights, because it’s fundamental to responsibility, fundamental to innovation, fundamental to human progress, fundamental to development. Property rights are absolutely essential. Well, John Howard said – his government said – people are not ready to buy off this carbon dioxide trading yet. This carbon – it’s a tax – and for the UN. So, what he said was let’s – what his government said was – let’s put in place credits for that. So instead of shutting down our factories, our cars, our trucks, our farming, our power stations, what we’ll do is we’ll go to the UN and say, mate, if we stop the clearing of land, that will save trees so they can absorb carbon dioxide. So would you give us a credit rather than shut down carbon dioxide production? We will stop the clearing of land. To do that, he had to confront Section 51, Clause 31 of the federal Constitution, which is that if you interfere with someone’s rights to use their property, you must pay just terms, compensation. Now, at the same time, the states do not have that protection.  

So, what John Howard did, it’s all documented. He went to the States and said, can you stop the clearing of land? You won’t have to pay compensation because Howard was looking at $100 to $200 billion dollars of compensation for the farmers. And they did that. Peter Beatty’s written about it, he was the premier at the time and, and Queensland and Bob Carr was the environment minister or the premier at the time in NSW. So, here’s a key plank of Liberal philosophy protecting property rights being completely trashed, completely trashed. So, you think of it, a farmer buys a farm, he’s got the right to clear the land because he wants to go from beef farming to a more value added, like wheat or something like that, whatever. Just, he can’t do it without getting permission. And that is the destruction of property rights. 

But it wasn’t just in the farms, it was in the towns. We’ve got a guy up in, Brisbane. 

I know his niece and he’s getting on in age and he said he wants to sell his blocks of land; He’s got a major site for development. So, this the City Council came in and said, yeah, you can sell them, but you’ll have to give us this area for park. Now, I don’t mind that the park’s been created, but you compensate him for it! You know, you don’t steal land off people.  

A fellow Mosman in Sydney, he told me that there are regulations in the Mosman City Council that say you’ve got to have a certain percentage of grass or Bush in your property. You can’t concrete it at all.  

Mark Di Paola: If you want to concrete it, go ahead and concrete it.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: You know, if you affect the drainage and it effects a neighbour, then you have to wear the cost of that, but you know what I mean? Property rights are fundamental.  

Mark Di Paola: Windfall tax is another one in Victoria. The windfall tax, like in taxing property, that’s another way of stealing property rights, isn’t it?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah. 

Adam Hudson: They just tax people on the Gold Coast, if you’re on level 5 or above, now their rates are up 40%. 

Mark Di Paola: One of the things that got the most attention on- 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Did I answer your question, by the way, about the hate crimes Bill? 

Adam Hudson: You did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: That’s right, I started just before we go on, with what you’re talking about, Mark. So, I mixed with Ralph Babet and Alex Antic in particular. And then Ralph said to me, what are you doing on the bill? And I said abstaining. He said, oh, mate, you got to oppose it. And I said, yeah, there’s grounds for that. And he had – I like Ralph – I was seriously considering opposing it. And I remember the conversation we had with Pauline; I was umming and ahing. So it’s not an easy thing to do because we also opposed all of the guillotines and we supported the motion that failed to extend the debate because that was what we’re really after. We’re after better debate, a better examination of the bill. The Labor Party combining with the Greens usually and often with the Liberals. In this case, it was the Liberals, guillotined 205 bills, as of now. 

Adam Hudson: No debate? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: No debate, no or minimal debate, just truncated debate. So what I’m saying is, quite often we would say just oppose it, but we had to send a signal. Pauline and I, we’re not afraid to be the only two, we’re not. Because we had to send a signal, and I’ve had people walk up to me and say, we understand what you did, thank you. Because it means you’re protecting our security.  

Mark Di Paola: I think This is why podcasts in this new medium of media, like you mentioned at the start is so important because, you know, I even responded to Pauline about the bill on X and she responded and I still didn’t quite understand it. But hearing you speak about it today, it’s helped me to understand that there’s parts of what is in that bill that you support and that’s, that everybody should feel safe from threat.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: The other thing, Mark, is that on the morning of the day of that bill being voted on, we released a suite of policies. And I’m happy to talk about them later, but they’re very comprehensive. And they’re all about putting more money in people’s pockets because we are going through a hell of a tough time with families and singles and small businesses in this country. And that needs to be addressed. We’ve got rampant government that is stealing this money and wasting it, ******* it up against the wall. That’s what we want to bring back. Our policies were released on the evening before to the major public, major newspapers in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne and they took off, you know, on the comments sections beneath the newspaper articles, online wonderfully positive. And some other minor parties went **** what do we do?  

Adam Hudson: Copy them.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: No, no, no, steal the airtime, steal the airtime and, and smash them and try and destroy us through lies. As I said, Gerard Rennick told a lie. We did not support the bill along with the Liberal and Labor Party. We abstained and I’ve explained that. 

Adam Hudson: I want to talk about you. You touched on something, because we are a business show and I’d love your input because I haven’t had the –  what?  

Mark Di Paola: I was just going to ask about the 44% on property. Well, we’re talking about property rights and taxes.  

Adam Hudson: Yeah, OK. 

Mark Di Paola: That’s one of the things that got a lot of comment, and a lot of feedback was Pauline mentioned that 44% of building a new house is in one form tax. And a lot of people said, oh, she’s a liar. You guys are lying. You guys, you should have fact checked it. Like it’s ******** it’s crap. I’m a developer. That’s not true. Can you clarify where that 44% comes from?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah, that comes from-  in the first place, I knew about this ten years ago. 

Someone showed me a newspaper article in Sydney Sun Herald, I think, or the Herald Sun or whatever it’s called in Sydney or the Telegraph, might have been Telegraph, I can’t remember. 

Whichever one Murdoch owns and it was quoting the Housing Institute of Australia or the Housing Institute of NSW or NSW Realtors, whatever they said it’s 45% to 50%. And, if you look at, there are so many factors there, if you look at, I organised and led an economic summit in in our Senate office in one of the buildings at QLD Parliament House, Queensland State Parliament House in 2017. We had a number of economists there and Alan Moran, Doctor Alan Moran, he said that the cost of building a house in Houston, Texas and Sydney, Australia at that time were about the same. 

The cost of the land was astronomically high in this country. So there’s so many things. It’s not just land prices, which are just being raised dramatically by regulations. Red tape, blue tape, green tape- 

Mark Di Paola: Open space contributions, wind taxes – 

Malcolm ROBERTS: And green tap, we as you, as you know, because of my stance on the on the environment needing to be healthy for civilizations future. I’m a, really pro-environmental person, but I’m after sensible policies because I’m also pro human. And, the environmental movement has been hijacked by ideology. It’s a ******** movement. Now the,  greens, because they’re using the environment as a way of saying you’re evil. Let us control it. And, so that’s what they’re doing. So does that answer your question?  

Adam Hudson: Yeah. So, you mentioned in passing that the whole climate debate is a massive fraud, but the other one that you mentioned in passing was the debasement and the printing of money and the Fiat currency. Can you speak to that quickly though, because I’ve, I’ve been getting barbecued over the last few weeks about trying to highlight how, you know, I think it’s a, you know, money in the bank that you’ve gone out and worked for is, you know, just an abstracted form of your time and energy.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: You’re correct.  

Adam Hudson: And it’s sitting there in a bank account getting devalued. And we just accept. OK, well, it’s just inflation, but it shouldn’t be the case. Can you in like, Can you speak to that?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Sure. It’s a stealth tax. We – I’ll come back to that – Let’s have a look at a real example here in this country during the COVID fraud, the COVID mismanagement, the COVID response. It wasn’t COVID that caused the problems. It was government that caused the problems. And, I’m going to put my hand up and say that when it first arrived here, we were given these pictures of people dead in the streets of Italy and France and Greece and China and all the rest of it. We now know that they were propaganda. They were complete ********   – the death toll from COVID was less than the flu.  

Adam Hudson: Do you mean – we – are you talking about the political class?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah, yeah, I’m not part of the political class, but- 

Adam Hudson: But you know what I mean. So, in Parliament, you’re not talking about general population, in Parliament. You guys were getting this stuff given to you.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah. And we could see it on the news. 

Adam Hudson: OK, so they sit you down and say all right, and who is they? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: No, no, no. The propaganda was everywhere through the media, and I’ll see if I can cover all the points. So we went, **** what if this is real? That means if it’s real, you have got to do something to prevent it. So we said OK to the government, Morrison’s government, go for it. Job. What was it called? Job seeker and job keeper.  

Adam Hudson: Job keeper or something?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah, the second one was job keeper. Hundreds of billions of dollars – 

Adam Hudson: Printed. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Printed. And if people want a source of the printing, there are many, many very good books, credible books that discuss it. Henry Ford, who was no slouch, he was a well-known businessman. He said if the people knew what the what was going on with their money, there would be a revolution by morning. One of the best places to hide something is on people’s noses. 

They let them have a look at it every day. They get so used to it, people – This has been happening since 1913 with the Federal Reserve Bank, which is privately owned. That’s another fact. But I asked a question of the Reserve Bank of Australia governor at Senate Estimates and the deputy governor answered my question. I said, is it true that money is basically printed? I can’t remember my exact question. And he said an electronic ledgers and he paused and he sort of thought about it and he said, yes, Senator Roberts, electronic journal entries. So yes, it is. So what happens is they don’t have any assets at stake. They just make an entry in a Ledger and then they give you the loan and when you default, you lose your asset. But they haven’t got anything at stake, just reserves and they’re fabricated. So yes, it’s very true. Now, if you have a look at what Morrison did and the Reserve Bank of Australia during COVID, they flooded the joint with cash. 

We told them that will lead to severe inflation. No, no, no, no it won’t. Well, it did. And then we had Chalmers come in as the treasurer and Albanese as the Prime Minister and continuing to hand out cash and that’s what perpetuated inflation.  

Adam Hudson: So what’s One Nation’s view of Bitcoin?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: We don’t have an official view of Bitcoin. I’m still doing my research on that at the moment, I would say, and I’ve read one book on it. I’m about to read another and I’ve listened to people. There seems to be. I’ll see if I can put my thoughts together on this. There seems to be genuine merit in it. They’re worth exploring. There seems to be. What’s attractive to me is I can’t understand this yet or put my finger on it, but it seems to be it’s a way of bypassing central banks, which I love. Sorry, I don’t love central banks. I love the bypassing of central banks. It makes money honest again, because with printing of money, money is not honest. With gold standard, the money is honest. But people are telling me that Bitcoin is a bit like the gold standard. So I’m really keen to learn more. Trump sent the right signals about that. So maybe that’s correct. What was the other thing? I was going to say it, it takes it out of the hands of the central bank and puts it in the hands of the people, which I love. But there are, that’s right. The other thing is I’ve got a very good one of my, well, I’ve got fantastic staff, but one, one of them is an economist by training, but he’s practical, he’s run businesses. He’s not just a theoretical economist. He said Bitcoin at the moment is still highly volatile. And so he said do not buy Bitcoin in one hit because you could buy it up here and lose your money. He said buy it on weekly instalments and they said they’re not, you’ll average out overall. 

But he said- 

Adam Hudson: *inaudible* cost average, yeah. The one book to read is the Bitcoin Standard. That’s  the Bible if you want to learn that space.  

Mark Di Paola: And we always talk about money printing and debasement. And there’s a really, really good book by Lynn Olden called Broken Money and it just talks about the history of money and, how like it’s a very abstract thought money printing.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Is that Lynn? 

Mark Di Paola: Lynn Olden.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah, I watched her half hour video. There was nothing there new, well a couple of things that were new. But when I when I first started on this climate scam, because as an engineer, I’ve been taught that science is the basis of engineering. So I understand what science really is. And as a mining engineer, I had to keep people alive underground. That meant ventilating mines, that meant understanding atmospheric gases. And when I realised that they were telling us that carbon dioxide from human activity was destroying the planet, I went ******** because the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 0.04%. And somebody said, Oh yeah, but one of the, you know, you can have that much arsenic in your in your food and you’ll die. And I said, yeah, but this is not a chemical effect. This is a physical effect. 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere is not going to cause any problems. We now know that’s true because if you look at what they’re telling us about climate is that we’re causing an increase in levels of carbon dioxide which is causing heating. Now what we need to do then is stop the production of human carbon dioxide, which is cut back on livestock, see the control of food cut back, especially on the use of coal, oil and natural gas, cars, etcetera. Now we’ve had two natural experiments on that. What they said was if we cut back on the use of these fuels, we will do that to our production of- to the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been going up, but that’s controlled entirely by nature. So let me explain why in 2009, we had a severe recession around the world, almost a depression because of the global financial crisis. So when you go into a recession, you produce- you use less hydrocarbon fuels and you produce less carbon dioxide. 

So what happened to the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, you’d expect it to go like that. 

It didn’t. That’s what they told us. It went like that, continued increasing. And then in 2020, we had the COVID near depression around the world because everyone’s shut down. And again, you’d expect it to cut level of carbon dioxide to do that. 

That’s what they told us it did, that there’s not even an Inflexion, not even an Inflexion because people don’t realise that according to Henry’s law, the oceans control the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because the oceans have in dissolved form 50 to 70 times more carbon dioxide than in the entire atmosphere. And that’s, that’s from the United Nations figures themselves. So what it means is that if you have slight increases in temperature, carbon dioxide gets released from the oceans. If you have slight decreases in temperature, carbon dioxide gets absorbed into the oceans. So that’s what controls it. And you can see every year there’s a seasonal level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And- 

Adam Hudson: It’s fascinating.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: It’s just- 

Adam Hudson: We’re running out of time. So we’ve got Eric here. I’d love to just run through before we finish. And I’ll get Eric to just some of these policies that you and Pauline announced from, it looked like you’re in Parliament House when you were- 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah. 

Adam Hudson: -Press conference. I’d love to run through those quickly. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Sure. 

Adam Hudson: If people are thinking of voting for One Nation, you can run through the reasons why before we wind it up. Did you have a question, Eric? 

Eric Machado: Yeah. Earlier you mentioned people saying thank you, keep going, job well done. And Pauline Hanson said the same thing off camera. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: She’s a walking logo, they see the red hair and just flock. 

Eric Machado: Yeah. But she says that it’s not reflecting in the voting as much as she wants. Why is that? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Two reasons. One is that people are ingrained to vote like mum and dad. If their mum voted Liberal and dad voted Liberal, they vote Liberal. If they vote Labour, they vote Labour. That’s entrenched. Another part of that, Eric, is that the media you watch, it’s already started. They will focus on Labour, Liberal, Labour, Liberal, Labour, Liberal Albanese, Dutton, Albanese, Dutton, Albanese, Dutton. They’re indoctrinating people to think that they’re the only two choices. So if you don’t like Labour, vote Liberal. So that that that’s what’s going on. We also saw in the Queensland election for example, Labour has been so bad in Queensland that they just barely got in 2020 because of COVID. Because when they had the COVID mismanagement people thought that Anna kept us safe. A complete lie. But that’s what they did so they kept her back. 

If she, if COVID hadn’t happened she would have been out on her ***. In February of 2020 she was gone. So people are misled. But the second thing is that they got so bad in the following four years that in October of 2024, when we had the state election, people were saying we got to get rid of Labour. That was the overriding thing, got to get rid of Labour. So people walked into the, into the ballot box thinking can’t have Labour back, can’t have Labour back. So I’ll vote for the other guys. The other guys, the Liberal Party. I saw time and time again people would walk out of the polling booth and say voted for you Malcolm, love your work. I put One nation #2. Put Liberals #1 because they were scared. So what we’re saying to people is we understand you don’t want Labour back. 

And I think the same is with Albanese. For goodness sake, vote conviction because we’ve got so many people who are saying One Nation’s policies are the right ones for us. Vote conviction. So put One nation #1 and I will guarantee you that whoever you put #2 we will do a better job then. 

But then the second thing is, OK, now you’re worried about Labour getting back. All you have to do is put Liberal before Labour and your vote. If we don’t get in, and the other minor parties don’t get in. Your vote will stop at Liberal. So vote two things, vote conviction and vote protection. Vote conviction, put One Nation number one. If we don’t get in, you’re at the right protection, which means your vote will go to Liberal. And if you don’t like Liberal and you want to make sure that Liberals don’t get in and just put Labour before Liberal. But above all, put One Nation number one. 

Mark Di Paola: That’s a great explanation on how that works. 

Adam Hudson: And if you are interested, we actually built this for Pauline’s visit, but we’re going to reuse it here. If you go to unemployable.com dot AU/OneNation   -ONE, not the numeral one, but the spelling ONE. So unemployable.com dot AU/OneNation, we’ve set up a page here where we had gotten all your policies from the website and we’ve put them into AI and it’s turned it into a podcast where for 20 minutes you can hear AI explain to you. And they haven’t leftied it. They’ve, they’ve left it really quite balanced where they’ve unpacked all of your policies and explained it to you and planning yourself. If you’re not a reader and you’re not going to sit there and download the PDFs or whatever. Download, go there, we’ll give you the print out and we’ll give you the audio and you can just hear it read to you by an, well, as impartial as AI can be, it’s not by us, it’s by AI and it’ll, give you a rundown of all their policies for free. Just go to our web page. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: The, the key thing is that, as I said earlier, our policies have been costed. They’re based on budget costs, based on Parliamentary Budget Office estimates. The, key part of it is putting more money in your pocket. And where do we get the money from? We get more than enough. We get 40 million, $40 billion to put money into people’s pockets. And that the things we’re doing there are productivity enhancements like cutting the cost of fuel, which is in everything, cutting through that. 

Adam Hudson: That was cool. So 50% fuel, excise cut, wasn’t it? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah, 26c a litre.  

Adam Hudson: 26 cents a litre. You’re delivering that by cutting the fuel excise for the first 12 months of your election, straight away. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah, I’m, working on getting Pauline to make that three years. 

Adam Hudson: OK.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: That’ll send a stronger signal to the Reserve Bank. These policies the Reserve Bank will love. 

Adam Hudson: So that’s one getting aged care, sorry, older people back to work, who want to be in work? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, there’s a really powerful one called income splitting. So if a male and female or husband and wife, spouse, whatever partner, whatever you want to call it, if one of them’s working and the other one’s not looking after the kids, then you can combine your income and divide it by two as it so, so that dramatically drops your tax rate. So that will for a typical family on an average income with one stay at home parent, that will save about $9500 to $10,000 a year. 

Adam Hudson: Yeah. So that brings the threshold, I think before you pay taxes up to 35 grand. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, that’s for the self managed super annuit.  

Adam Hudson: Oh, sorry. Oh, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So income splitting is one.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yes, and the other thing is cutting the electricity prices because of the- at the moment coal is being smashed. It’s causing destruction of the, coal boilers, the generators for electricity because coal is meant to be stable base load power that’s being switched on and switched off and that’s destroying it. So there’s nothing cheaper than coal anywhere in the world. That’s why the Chinese are wanting it. We produce 560 million tonnes of coal roughly a year. Chinese produce 4.5 billion and they’re heading for more and they’re importing, they’re heading for five and they’re importing out. So coal is not dead. The forecasts for coal are dramatically increasing. We are shooting ourselves in the head economically in this this country. So, So what we want to do is change the national electricity- what we will do is change the national electricity market rules which govern the allocation of electricity rather than being artificially favouring solar and wind which destroys coal, makes it uncompetitive. We want to just let the cheapest go. 

Adam Hudson: And I know one of the things we hear over and over and over is we are just not getting anything for our resources. What’s your plan? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yes, we want to put an excise, a tax, sorry, not an excess, a tax on production and exporting of, of natural gas. At the moment, Norway does that, Qatar does that and they get so much money from doing that. Norway gives it to a wealth fund for their citizens. Qatar, I don’t know what happens to it, but in our country, Bob Hawke and John Howard, Labour and Liberal basically gave our gas away. And what we want to do is tax that based upon volume of production, not on profit and loss. Because as you know, with profit and loss, you can make it anything you want. 

Hosts: Exactly. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: So you can cut your tax dramatically to almost zero just by just by allocating costs to fire- 

Adam Hudson: So you’re basically proposing to tariff it, right? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah. 

Adam Hudson: Yeah. So you would tariff it so we get paid for it. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: We’re in a crazy situation, Adam. I’m told that the Japanese import our gas- 

Adam Hudson: And resell it. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, not only that, but they import our gas and they charge their importers $3 billion as import duty. And we get sweet FA and, and, and, but think about that. 

Hosts: *inaudible*  

Malcolm ROBERTS: We have got the world’s largest tax evader in Chevron, basically an American company taking our resources and paying zip and John Howard introduced, introduced the exporting of that gas. He authorised the exporting, his government. Prior to that, Bob Hawke changed the petroleum rent resources tax. It sounds wonderful. It guaranteed that they won’t pay any tax. So  both parties are doing it and then they don’t want to tax it. We also want to get a pipeline across the country because we know that our net Northwest shelf gas can be converted to liquid fuels, diesel and petrol. We can be self sufficient. 

Adam Hudson: OK, guys, you know, JFK said every country gets the government they deserve. That we live in a democracy. You can vote actually, guys, and you know how to vote if you want to, if you like what Malcolm’s saying anything else? What else are you guys going to get stuck into to put more money back in our pockets as a nation and as a people? I’ve got here some notes. NDIS, Medicare fraud. Fraud is huge in NDIS. Fraud is huge in Medicare. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Well, there are four components, as I said. The first one is putting more money in people’s pockets. So the second one is where do you get the money from? Third one is that the money that we can get from shutting down waste and duplication in the federal government is around about at least $90 billion. So that means $40 billion to put more money in people’s pockets. That leaves another 50, so another $20 billion a year in investing in infrastructure for the future productivity and the future wealth and the rest can go after paying the debt because at the moment we have got a debt of about $800 billion, eight hundred and something $860 billion in 2026/27 that will be- the interest payments will be the largest single budget item there is. That’s if NDIS doesn’t go rampant. So where are we getting the money from? From shutting down government waste and duplication. Shut down. Abolish the, the climate fraud department. Sorry, the climate change department, because that is that’ll, that’ll save us at least $30 billion a year. Then all the regulations, the subsidies, all the rest of the go to that and it’ll free up the price of electricity, reduce the price of electricity dramatically and it will also get the government the hell out of interfering in people’s lives. The government through the climate change, climate fraud policies, net zero from the United Nations Paris Agreement for the United Nations, which both the major parties are pushing. What we will do is take the government out of every aspect of your lives. It if you look at energy, it’s in everything.  

The second thing is the health and health, education, housing under the under the Constitution are state government responsibilities. And when you have states, this is really important. When you have states being responsible for something, then they compete on being better than other people. That gives us accountability. So what happens is if, if NSW does a better job on education than Queensland, people will actually leave Queensland and go to NSW because you’ve got choice. So when you’ve got no choice, you’ve got no accountability. So at the moment, the federal government has come in, John Howard again introduced the national curriculum, which has come, which has come in from the United Nations. That’s why our education standards are dropping, plummeting, because there’s no accountability now, because when the federal government has a curriculum, there’s no competing curriculum. So federal waste in duplicating the state and then on education and health and aged care and housing, that’ll go. That saves billions there. 

We also want to abolish the federal government looking after, well, no, they don’t look after. They destroy the federal government department of, of Aboriginal Affairs, well, all the racket and the white and black Aboriginal industry. And instead we would, we would fund grants to the local communities, bypass all the all the white and black Aboriginal aboriginal industry. There are other departments, NDIS bring that back into shape. That’s a real disaster. And it’s because, well, not only is, is there so much fraud going on, Adam, but people who deserve care are not getting it. And people who, who are, who are not entitled or are getting huge amounts spent on them. 

Adam Hudson: Providers are just milking it at a lot of providers. I’ve, I’ve just had story after story. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: You know, I didn’t learn about this until yesterday. I haven’t checked it out, but we had two really well-spoken a man and a woman from one of the they’re privately owned, but they’re one of the biggest providers of NDIS care, right? And they’re Australian and, they employ employees. Some of the foreign equity firms, you know, that signals they’re after money also have provide providers. They don’t employ them. They put them on an Uber type contract. So they don’t pay compensation, workers compensation, they don’t pay superannuation, they don’t pay payroll tax. And so what’s happening is the federal government reimburses them, and they skim off what, what would that be? 12, 14 15%. And that’s going straight overseas. It’s rampant. But there there’s a lack of accountability. So these guys were telling us, I forgot what I was going to say about that, but it’s just rife. I learned so many new things just when listening to these people. And we thought we’d have done our research on NDIS. It’s just been rorted.  But the important thing is it’s got to be brought into control because if you don’t, the people who need care won’t get it. 

Adam Hudson: That’s the sad irony of the whole thing is that that that’s what always happens with these things is the scammers get paid and the people who actually need it end up. 

To jump through more hoops and they’re already under enough stress and duress. 

It’s the mismanagement of the programme. It’s always problematic. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: It was brought in by Julia Gillard to try and win an election. She brought in the Gonski report which was for education. She brought in the NDIS just to get headlines for an election and they had no bone, no meat around the bones. And the late Liberal Party came in. What do we do with this? And then they became paranoid about fraud because- 

Adam Hudson: It’s approaching our military budget, isn’t it? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yes. 

Hosts: Yeah. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: I think it’s above. 

Adam Hudson: It’s above the military. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: I think so. 

Mark Di Paola: Isn’t all of the two biggest line items NDIS and interest rate payment? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: I think you’re right. Medicare, welfare, social services would be up there somewhere. 

Adam Hudson: I think as much in the vicinity of what it costs to defend the country on disability support. I mean, that to me is like that just does not sound correct. 

Mark Di Paola: Well, the numbers don’t- 

Adam Hudson: It just doesn’t work. In closing, probably one of the hottest topics right now with housing affordability and just the state of the nation is immigration. What’s One Nation’s net zero immigration policy? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Zero net, I call it because net zero, no, no, Net zero is the carbon dioxide scam. Zero net is immigration. What we want to do, I’ll make these very, very clear. There is no bigger threat to the housing prices to no bigger cause driver of housing prices which are now at record levels and unaffordable for many people and also rents than immigration. So what we want to do is both reduce the demand for houses and, increase the supply of houses and also reduce the cost of new houses and that’ll all drive down rents. Rents are just sky rocketing. So we want to stop immigration, not forever. So really it’s a pause. We want to deport , people who are here illegally. The federal government’s just, I don’t care. Both Liberal and Labour and the big immigration policy was brought in by John Howard and perpetuated by each of the prime ministers. Since then, Liberal, Labour, Nationals, all of them have perpetuated the big immigration. One of the one of the really sad things, inhuman things is that Albanese, Albanese said when he first came into power.  

We will continue big immigration until we catch up with pre COVID levels. Pre COVID there are 1.9 million people here on resident visas or temporary visas, temporary visas, I should say temporary visas. There are now 2.5 million people here on temporary visas and they each need a roof, they each need a bed that taking up houses. We’ve got so many of them here illegally. We want to deport them. So that will- stopping immigration until their infrastructure catches up because they haven’t been doing spending on major infrastructure for decades. Dams, railroads, roads, hospitals, schools that haven’t done that. That’ll allow the infrastructure to catch up, allow the housing to catch up. The quality of people is also something that’s really important. Albanese is telling us that we’re bringing in construction workers. That is complete ********. The percentage of people in amongst our immigrants that are construction workers is 0.6%. They’re supposed to build the houses for the other 99.4%. It is crap. What the reason Albanese is doing this massive immigration is that we have a per capita recession. So on the basis of per person, we’re in recession. So if the only way you can stop that becoming a recession and then him, then Charmer’s being labelled as the treasurer and Albanese the Prime Minister when the recession occurred is by bringing in more people to pump up the gross domestic product. That’s what it’s all about. 

So we would so, so that would stop, that would reduce demand by stopping immigration, pausing immigration, deporting people who are here illegally. Then the other thing about freeing up supply, stop all foreign ownership of housing and farms, stop it.  

Adam Hudson: Permanently or temporarily? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Permanently. And, the Liberal Party and Labor Party have both realised that people are waking up. We have been pushing this Adam for about 3 years now. Really severely. 

Adam Hudson: So like Indonesia, you can’t buy in Indonesia, you can lease the land-  

Malcolm ROBERTS: China you can’t. 

Adam Hudson: China so you can’t own you, could they do leasehold or something or what’s the plan? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: No ownership. 

Adam Hudson: no ownership. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: No ownership. New Zealand’s just done it. When I say just fairly recently. 

Adam Hudson: Even Australians, I think in New Zealand have to apply now for owning in New Zealand. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: The Canadians have done it though. But we wouldn’t say sell overnight. We’d say give them two or three years to sell, but well, I would say 2 years. 

Adam Hudson: You mean if they own, they have to sell?  

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yes. 

Adam Hudson: Even OK retrospectively. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: If they own it now they have to sell it. 

Adam Hudson: Wow. Wow. 

Mark Di Paola: Do you think that it’d stop like foreign-  like one of the big things that Trump seems to be running on and executing on is getting foreign investment into the USA, getting Japan and all these other countries to invest into the US economy. Do you think that would hurt our, our Australian economy stopping foreign investment? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: We don’t, we don’t mind in, in housing- 

Mark Di Paola: bringing housing prices down is one thing, but destroying the economy through a lack of investment, Not that far. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: We’re not opposed to foreign investment. We’re opposed to foreign control and ownership. 

Adam Hudson: Do you know, do you know any other numbers around that? Like how much of our property is owned by foreigners? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Housing property? 

Adam Hudson: yeah,  

Malcolm ROBERTS: OK. 

Adam Hudson: Residential. Yeah. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: According to the Australian Taxation Office and the Foreign Investment Review Board, it’s less than 1%. But that’s complete rubbish because the National Australia Bank have done surveys and it’s around about 14.9% in New South Wales. 

Adam Hudson: So OK. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: And then you’ve also got real estate agents telling us the same thing. 

Adam Hudson: So your policy would see 15% of residential properties in Australia all of a sudden come onto the market in two years? 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Over 2 years, Yeah, not overnight, but over 2 years. 

Adam Hudson: That’ll bring property prices down. I would say yeah, but I’m not saying, I’m not saying it’s a good or a bad thing. I’m just processing it. It’s an interesting idea. 

Mark Di Paola: It is a bad thing because it’ll crash the economy. 

Eric Machado: I just know that there’s a lot of Australians wealth is in property, right, Compared to US. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Yeah, and the banks are holding back lending to small businesses, medium sized businesses and just going for the property market. 

Adam Hudson: I think it’s interesting because you sort of got a divided nation right now. And so the, the young people are probably who don’t own assets are probably cheering and the rest of the country who are, who own assets are probably not. But it’s, well, I think Australia does have to make some hard decisions. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: We also want to take, stop the GST on building on house construction materials. 

Adam Hudson: That’s a great idea. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: which would reduce the cost of housing, making land more freely available because that’s being held back at the moment by some developers, but also by the regulations which are, which are way above what’s needed. There’s something else I was going to mention in there. 

Adam Hudson: I’ve got some notes here from the press conference, but I think you’ve covered most of them, energy prices was a good one, NDIS, Medicare. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: So just on energy prices and the excise for cutting 26 cents off the cost of a litre of fuel. They’re, very, very positive because they’ll improve productivity and they’ll reduce the cost. 

Energy transport and electricity are input costs right across the economy. So they will drop prices. These are not inflationary, but, but we’re putting more money back in people’s pockets. We’ll improve the productivity of the economy, which is generate wealth, not inflation. 

Adam Hudson: Senator Malcolm Roberts, it’s been an absolute pleasure listening to you and hearing your ideas for the country. And yeah, I really just want to say thank you on behalf of us and all the listeners for taking the time to actually have a long form discussion and all the work that politicians in this country do. I think it’s a tough job and you cop a lot of **** and the pay is not that good. So you, you must do it for, and it’s really clearly evident here, you do it because you believe in the country and you want to make a better place for us here. I was genuinely surprised by some of the aspects of the conversation pleasantly and I really enjoyed the chat. So thank you for coming in. Drop a comment guys below the video. By engaging in this content, guys, through a like or a comment, it sends a message to other politicians and people of power that, hey, we’re paying attention here. We’re paying attention to these alternative channels of communication and we’ll get more guests of this quality and calliper into the studio.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: And I want to thank you not only for the invitation but thank you all for what you’re doing. Because as I said, there is nothing more important than freedom of life, but very, very, close on the heels. And what makes freedom of life possible is freedom of speech and the only way to avoid the direct and also the implied censorship of the mouthpiece media, that globalist Big Brother media is free independent podcasters, because that’s the only way to get real opinions and facts out. 

Adam Hudson: Our pleasure. It’s days like this that I feel good about what we’re doing. Like we’re not-  

Eric Machado: It’s, education, right? Like in the Australian people. I think the Western world need to be a lot more educated and a lot more interested in politics because it’s not something that’s really learnt in school.  

Malcolm ROBERTS: It’s deliberately taken out.  

Eric Machado: Yeah. And it’s not something that, you know, my parents never really gave me the, you know, the birds and the bees. Talk about Pol-  you know, politics. It was basically, hey, my parents voted liberal. So what do you do? You vote liberal. It’s exactly what you said, right? You’re basically entrenched in that. So I think these pieces are very important because a lot of people don’t realise how much business and politics are intertwined. 

Malcolm ROBERTS: Harry Truman said, The former U.S. President, once U.S. President, said the only thing new in the world is the history you have not read. It’s all happened before. What they do, the globalist curriculum, is to take out civics, which you aren’t. You know how our political systems work, how democracy works, how the Constitution works, history. Because then people are completely ignorant and they don’t understand the significance of even voting.  

Adam Hudson: Yep, I agree. That’s it for today guys. Thank you for watching. We’ll see you on the next episode of Unemployable. 

Peter Dutton has grabbed headlines for calling banks woke for denying customers.

We’re glad he’s picking up on something we’ve been raising for five years.

It’s time to protect Australians from greedy, woke bankers – yet history shows that neither of the major political parties will take effective action. You can trust that One Nation will!

Media Release

On August 29th, The Australian newspaper reported that a government-owned bank, created out of Australia Post, may be back on the Labor government’s agenda. This move is seen as a response to the recent closures of numerous bank branches in regional Australia. If this report is accurate, I applaud the Government for this welcome development. 

Years of regulation have not succeeded in forcing the banks to act with honesty, decency, and compassion.  Additional regulation is not the answer, as large banks typically have access to superior legal resources compared to the Government.  The answer lies in establishing a People’s Bank that can provide competition to the Big Four banks oligopoly, or more accurately, the cartel. 

A People’s Bank could rewrite their Banking Code of Practice, restoring protections that successive Liberal Governments have removed—such as face-to-face banking, cash transactions and a guarantee of banking services to prevent the problem of political de-banking. People’s Banks worldwide have proven their ability to be secure and profitable, and to hold commercial banks accountable, as outlined in my speech. 

Transcript

The Australian newspaper reported on 29 August that ‘a government owned bank created out of Australia Post is understood to be back on the Labor government’s agenda’ and that it is ‘seen as a response to the closure of numerous bank branches in regional Australia’. I hope this report is well founded, and, if it is, I applaud the government for this welcome development. 

Years of regulation have failed to force the banks to behave with honesty, decency and compassion. More regulation is not the answer. Big banks will always have better lawyers than the government. The answer is a people’s bank offering competition to the big four bank oligopoly—or, more accurately, cartel. As someone who participated in the inquiry into bank closures in regional Australia, I attest that there is a desperate need for a public bank to revolutionise Australia’s banking system, the way the original Commonwealth Bank did, which the Fisher Labor government established in 1912. 

Today the big four cartel controls 80 per cent of the market and dominates banking. They’re acting together to remove face-to-face banking, which doesn’t stop customers from needing face-to-face services. It just forces customers to travel further. It’s not just in the regions; it’s as difficult for the elderly in the city to travel to the next suburb for their banking as it is for a regional customer to travel to the next town. 

We saw numerous instances of the banks’ dishonesty when closing branches, and we’re seeing it again right now with ANZ’s closure of its Katoomba branch. The ANZ treated Katoomba as a regional branch until it promised to not close the regional branches as a condition of its merger with Suncorp Bank. Lo and behold, suddenly ANZ claims Katoomba is not a regional branch so is proceeding to close it. The big four have concentrated close to 70 per cent of their lending into residential and investor mortgages, with more money fuelling the increase in house prices, while neglecting small business lending and regional communities. 

All four are aggressively pushing customers away from cash and into digital banking and transacting so they can surveil and harvest your data and collect fees on all non-cash transactions. They now gouge Australians out of more than $4 billion per year in transaction fees and surcharges. In short, the big four serve only themselves and use their oligopoly power over a captive market to exploit their customers. 

There’s a dire need for a public bank that can set standards of service and break up the banking cartel. A post office bank is the perfect way to do it, operating under a modified banking code of practice to restore protections to customers that successive Liberal-National governments have removed and guaranteeing cash and banking services, face-to-face banking in a branch, best interests of the customer and protections against politicisation of banking. 

The Commonwealth Bank originally started in post offices in 1912, from which it provided banking services to all parts of Australia, even remote areas. It raised loans for the government at one-tenth the cost of the private banks. In the panic of 1914, it protected deposits in all the banks. It supported Australia’s agricultural production in World War I and funded the emergency purchase of a fleet of ships in the war, which became Australia’s first national shipping line. It made development loans to local councils all across Australia for crucial infrastructure, and it made affordable housing loans to returned soldiers. It accomplished all of this in its first decade, before its political enemies reduced its ability to compete with the private banks, until later when another Labor government unleashed it again in World War II. 

Public and post banks are very successful around the world. The Japan Post Bank is one of the world’s biggest banks and was the secret to Japan’s postwar economic miracle, funding their government’s investments in infrastructure and industries. France’s post bank, La Banque Postale, started in 2006 and is already Europe’s 18th biggest bank and the biggest lender to local councils in France. Kiwibank started as a post bank in 2002, quickly growing into New Zealand’s fifth largest bank and the only bank that can compete with New Zealand’s big four banks, which Australia’s big four banks own. Its first achievement was injecting competition which stopped all branch closures in New Zealand for seven years. In the global financial crisis, Kiwibank was the only bank to increase lending while the private banks all reduced lending. Listen to this: the Bank of North Dakota, not a postal bank but a brilliant state owned bank, supported North Dakota’s public finances and its farmers for more than a century, making a profit in every year of operation. In the 2008 financial crisis, North Dakota was the only United States state to stay out of crisis. 

I applaud the news that the government is in talks with Australia Post on this solution, and I urge the government to have the vision to create a powerful bank that can once again serve the people of Australia. 

We don’t have four banks and two supermarkets in this country. We have one predatory group of foreign investors hiding behind different logos.

BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, First State and others own large portions of the banks and supermarkets that are ripping Australians off the most.

Transcript

So, why does that happen? Why are foreign companies getting let off the hook? I’ll tell you why. It’s because many of even our large Australian companies are part-owned and controlled by foreign corporations. The major predators are BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and First State. They own the four banks, sorry they own 10 per cent of the four banks combined and they own the controlling interest. They tell the banks what to do—BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, First State and others in that little cohort of multinational predatory organisations. We don’t have four main banks. We have one main bank that is hiding behind four logos. That’s what we have. Same policies, same principles, same strategies, same products, same services. 

Coles and Woolies, again, Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard. Go right through our corporations in this country.  The corporations we thought were Australian owned, they’re foreign owned and controlled, and where does the money go? The profit goes overseas and what did the Morrison government do, along with the state premiers? Loaded it up so that foreign multinationals owning the large companies in this country made a killing out of COVID at the expense of small companies and small businesses. 

The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA), an independent industry-funded agency, handles complaints concerning financial losses due to actions by banks, insurance companies, or superannuation funds. While AFCA has a reputation for avoiding complaints rather than addressing them, their recent accomplishment of collecting $300 million for members of the public affected by financial misbehaviour is a good result.

My questioning of AFCA didn’t start smoothly, as CEO David Locke seemed unaware that the AFCA website explicitly asks that individuals with concerns about a code of practice to submit them via the form provided, as part of their role overseeing the Banking Code of Practice review body, the BCCC.

It took until around the 2 minutes 52 seconds mark to receive a response to what, I thought, was a straightforward opening question. Subsequently, I pursued questions regarding AFCA’s success rates. A significant portion of their response was taken on notice, so I look forward to receiving their answers.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Your website invites consumers to lodge a complaint regarding the operation of a code of practice. How many such complaints have you received on the Banking Code of Practice?

Mr Locke: We receive complaints where a consumer has a contract with the bank and they have suffered financial loss. Then they can bring a complaint through to AFCA. So the matter is really if, for example, the bank has failed to comply with its legal obligations or they’ve suffered loss through some misconduct or inappropriate action on the part of the bank. We have to determine what’s fair, and, in looking at that, we have to have regard to the banking code. That’s how the banking code comes into effect. We had 56,000 complaints about banks and other credit lenders last year. In terms of a freestanding complaint about the banking code, though, that would normally go through to the Banking Code Compliance Committee, which is a separate body, and their role is to enforce the banking code. The banking code is relevant to us in our jurisdiction and we do look at it, but, if it’s just about a financial firm breaching the banking code obligations on its own, then that would be a matter that would go through to the Banking Code Compliance Committee.

Senator ROBERTS: So you would only field the complaint if it was a breach of the banking code?

Dr Smith: We can take complaints about breaches of the banking code if the consumer can show that there has been a financial loss suffered as a result of that breach or indeed that they have suffered non-financial loss as a result of that particular breach. For example, a breach of the provision under the banking code related to guarantees and whether or not the guarantor was fully informed of their rights before they entered into that guarantee might be a matter that we would take as a complaint.

Senator ROBERTS: So, if someone was just concerned about a potential change or a possible change in the banking code, which is coming up, they would not be lodging a complaint with you?

Dr Smith: The conduct needs to have occurred. But, in terms of future issues, there has obviously been a recent review of that code and no doubt that person could also voice those concerns to the Banking Code Compliance Committee.

Senator ROBERTS: Have you had any communication with the Australian Banking Association regarding their review of the banking code?

Mr Locke: Yes. We were consulted in a fashion by the Australian Banking Association in the course of their review. They commissioned an independent review of the banking code, which was carried out, and then they undertook an informal consultation process with a number of bodies, including us. Following that, they approached the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for approval to change the banking code. This is a code that has been approved by ASIC, so any changes need to be approved by ASIC. ASIC decided to undertake its own consultation, and we participated in that and made a submission to it as well. So we’ve engaged with the ABA and we’ve engaged with ASIC with regard to the ABA’s review.

Senator ROBERTS: On notice, could I get a copy of your comments to the ABA and ASIC, please.

Mr Locke: Certainly. We’ll take that on notice. We have made a public submission, and it’s available on our website, but we can certainly send the link through to your office.

Senator ROBERTS: From the data on your website, for the year 2023, the number of complaints resolved in favour of the complainant was only 31 per cent, with 69 per cent in favour of the bank or financial institution. However, only five per cent of complaints reached the decision stage. Some were rectified early on and some were refused process. Of the complaints over banking disputes—just banking—how many complaints were received, how many were resolved in favour of the complainant and how many were withdrawn for 2023?

Mr Locke: I can provide all those details on notice, Senator.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s fine.

Mr Locke: What I can tell you is the way our process works. A consumer will have gone through an independent dispute resolution process with the bank and then come through to AFCA. AFCA sends it back to the bank for them to have one last opportunity to resolve the matter before we otherwise start working on it. What we’re finding is that about 65 per cent of the time the banks resolve the matter at that point.

Senator ROBERTS: Once you step in?

Mr Locke: Yes. Obviously we would prefer for that to have been done and for people not to have to come to AFCA, but we’re finding that 65 per cent of the time there. What we then find is that we are able to resolve the majority of cases through our case-working process—through mediation, through recommendations and through negotiation. Only about five per cent of matters actually go through to decision. What you will see is that the matters that resolve when we go back to the bank or the matters that resolve through our processes—that is a situation where the consumer is effectively happy with the agreement that they’ve reached with the bank. So you would expect that the small number that go through to determinations are probably the ones where it’s more contentious, more of a binary decision. You would expect that, where the consumer had a better claim, the banks would have resolved the cases earlier in the process. But I can set all of that out on notice so you’ve got that.

Senator ROBERTS: Could you also break down the information into value groups so that I can see the success rate at progressively higher amounts of claim. My feedback is that AFCA are great at getting back $1,000 but not so good at getting back $100,000. The banks’ clutches are maybe a bit stronger.

Mr Locke: I’ll certainly provide you with whatever we have in terms of the breakdown. Last year our work secured $304 million in compensation and refunds for consumers and small-business owners, but we can give you the amounts that relate to that. I don’t think it is the case that it’s just lower value amounts that have been settling. We do settle a number of matters where the settlement is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We’ll provide you with some information on that.

Senator ROBERTS: I’m hearing settlements are a fraction of the claim but the complainant accepts something rather than nothing. On notice, of all complaints settled on behalf of the complainant, what was the value of claim verses the settlement accepted or awarded?

Mr Locke: I don’t think we would have that information, but I can certainly let you have the information that we have available.

Mr Untersteiner: The challenge with that is: if something is settled between the parties before it goes to determination, there’s no obligation for them to disclose to us what the settlement was, so we typically won’t have visibility. We have some visibility, and, on notice, we can share with you what we do have, but it will be a small cut of the overall data.

Mr Locke: There are three cohorts that I talked about. The first cohort, when we go back to the financial firm, is given an opportunity to resolve. We don’t normally know what the resolution of that matter is. We just know the consumer’s happy and doesn’t want us to do anything further. That is what we call IDR data, internal dispute resolution data. The firms have, since January, had to report that through to ASIC, so ASIC would have some of that data. The data that we will have are those cases that don’t resolve and that are then resolved through our caseworking process or the matters that go through to decision, which you have mentioned. With regard to that, I can certainly provide that.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you very much, if you could do that. When AFCA were set up, you were allowed to go back to 2012 to take on older cases. On notice, of all banking cases referred to you for the period 2012 to 2018 for an amount over $200,000, how many were resolved in favour of the complainant, and what was awarded as opposed to what was claimed?

Mr Locke: I will take that on notice. I think, in total in that look-back jurisdiction, if I recall right we had just under 1,500 cases. A majority of those did relate to banking and credit matters. We will certainly take that on notice and provide you with what information we can.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Finally, for that group of claims, are there any claims still outstanding from 2012 to 2018?

Mr Locke: No. They’ve all been dealt with.

Senator ROBERTS: Great. Thank you. The next question is about your administration. Are you still closing your office at 2 pm on Wednesdays so the staff can go home in the name of productivity?

Mr Locke: We don’t close the office, but we do give staff—it’s effectively a bit like compressed hours—three hours to spend on wellbeing or to use for their time. This was an initiative we trialled during COVID, when we were seeing a lot of burnout and stress amongst our people. We discussed it with our people. We didn’t change any of our productivity measures, so the same amount of work had to be completed within the five-day week as was completed with this three-hour period. What we actually found was that productivity increased, and we’ve found that’s continued to be the case. We actually have higher levels of productivity now than at any time in the operation of the organisation, by caseworker. We found giving people that small amount of flexibility has actually made sound business sense. The initial intent behind it was about wellbeing, particularly when we were seeing a lot of and stress and challenges during lockdowns. Of course the majority of our staff are Melbourne, and they had prolonged lockdowns at that time. But what we’ve actually seen is that productivity has increased and continued to increase. So that is something that we do, but we don’t close the phones. It is an optional thing. Many staff work during that period but use it just for quiet time without interruption, but some staff use it to pick up the kids or to look after older relatives or to arrange appointments. As I said, the same amount of work has to be done during the working week.

Mr Untersteiner: I’ll just add that we did measure and we saw our attrition rates drop, we saw absenteeism drop, we saw productivity go up, we saw cost per complaint go down and we’ve seen employee engagement go up. Just from a general business initiative and a cost perspective, it’s been cost positive.

Chair: I need to share the call, Senator Roberts. Do you have another question?

Senator ROBERTS: I can put two on notice, but I’ve got one final question. Are financial institutions afraid of AFCA, or do they see you as another pesky bureaucracy that needs to be surmounted or brushed aside?

Mr Locke: Well, I hope—

Senator ROBERTS: I know you said 65 per cent of complaints are resolved.

Mr Locke: I can’t speak on behalf of—there are 44,000 members. About three-quarters of those are people who have ACRs, and the remainder are different firms with Australian financial services licences. I don’t think there’s any unified view with regard to that. What I hope, Senator, is that financial firms recognise that we play an important role. We do our utmost to act independently and fairly to determine intractable matters that otherwise people would presumably be coming to their elected representatives for or going to the media about. We seek to give people closure on matters, whether that goes in their favour or not. We act in accordance with the rules, and we apply our fairness jurisdiction in accordance with the way that we articulate there. I don’t seek for anybody to be afraid of us. I hope that industry see us as playing a constructive and useful role and recognise our legitimacy, but I hope that they also recognise that we will call matters as we see them and we will treat all parties fairly and independently. That’s our role as an alternative to the court system.

Senator ROBERTS: Could you take on notice if there’s any sign, evidence or statistic that reflects that the financial institutions respect what you’re doing.

Mr Locke: I’ll take that on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: It’s a difficult one.

Mr Locke: It’s a difficult one for us to answer really.

Senator ROBERTS: It is; I accept that.

Mr Locke: We hope that parliamentarians, financial firms and people who act on behalf of consumers, whether that’s law firms or consumer bodies, respect the role that we play and believe that we do that to our utmost ability.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you

ASIC is a failed agency that instead of holding the banks accountable has let them get off scot-free.

I asked questions about fees for no service at estimates and wasn’t reassured.

I’m concerned about the increasing influence of large, predatory merchant banks on the Australian economy. You’ve heard the names mentioned — Blackrock, First State, State Street, Vanguard and Norges. While their shareholdings may be small, typically 5 – 8% each, when they act together these shareholdings amount to a controlling interest over targeted industries.

These include our retailing duopoly, Coles and Woolworths and our Big-4 banks: Commonwealth, ANZ, NAB and Westpac/St George.

I asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) about the way that our banking sector behave like a monopoly — one set of owners with multiple logos. The answers were encouraging but the ACCC needs more power to control these predatory merchant banks.

I also asked about de-banking, which is the process that the Big-4 use their market power to harm or close businesses that compete with them, including cryto exchanges and bullion dealers. The biggest competitor of all though, is actually cash. Physical money competes with more traceable and profitable electronic banking. Banks are closing branches, pulling out ATMs and generally trying to engineer a cash-free society for their profit and control.

These questions were my first to ACCC in quite some time. The answers were sharp and well informed and I look forward to developing these lines of inquiry next estimates.

Transcript

CHAIR: Senator Roberts. 

Senator ROBERTS: We don’t call the ACCC very often because it seems you do a very good job. To improve banking competition—and that’s needed—do we need more regulation or more independent banks providing competition? Which is it? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: We want both. 

Senator ROBERTS: Okay! The ACCC refused permission for ANZ to acquire Suncorp bank on competition grounds? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: We did. 

Senator ROBERTS: That was a very good decision. Would it improve competition in Australian banking if Suncorp was now purchased by a third party not currently involved in banking? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: Firstly, I should note that ANZ and Suncorp have taken an action for review in the tribunal and that decision will come down next week, and so we await that decision. It may or may not be the same decision as the ACCC’s. However, our decision reflected that we were not satisfied that there would not be a substantial lessening of competition and either Suncorp continuing independent, as it is now, or being acquired by another party—one of the possible alternative transactions that was identified was, for instance, merger with an alternative regional bank or smaller bank—or by a party that is not currently a participant in the banking sector, would each retain the independent, competitive constraint. 

Senator ROBERTS: In your progress report on the digital platform services inquiry, you made the point that the ACCC continues to recommend the introduction of new and expanded industry-wide consumer measures, including prohibition on unfair trading practices. What industries or perhaps what context informed that request for more power? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: The ACCC is looking for that reform across the economy. We do see that, in terms of digital platforms—for instance, in online trading, subscription traps are a good example—there is a significant capacity to have unfair practices and processes that deprive consumers of the ability to make informed choices. But we do see these problems across the economy. The government is proceeding through a consultation process, which will conclude in November of this year, and we hope this will result in the introduction of an unfair trading practices prohibition across the economy. 

Senator ROBERTS: As to PEXA—I think they’re the conveyancing people? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: Yes. 

Senator ROBERTS: Would PEXA’s near-monopoly in electronic conveyancing be an area where you would like more power to keep an eye on their use of market power? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: We are hopeful that ARNECC, which is the current regulator, will be in a position to require compliance with the steps towards interoperability, which had been hoped for and planned, so that there will be a capacity to result in meaningful competition. 

Senator ROBERTS: You approved the merger of the Armaguard and Prosegur cash handling businesses—against opposition from the free market, which fears losing the ability to negotiate on price—with the justification of keeping these businesses going. Are you confident the merged entity is viable and capable of holding 90 per cent of the Australian market long-term—let’s say, up to 2030? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: It is correct that we did approve that merger on condition of an undertaking. We were particularly conscious of the matters that were put before us relating to the loss of viability for two competing providers of cash-in-transit services, as there was such a significant decrease in the use of cash, particularly brought on during the period of COVID. Under that undertaking, which is effective for three years, the merged entity is required to continue to offer the services to all locations that are currently serviced. It also limits the ability to reduce service levels and raise prices. We do monitor compliance with all undertakings we accept. We do know that the merged entity states that there have been further changes that call into question its continued viability. We have granted an interim authorisation that was sought by 20 members of the Australian Banking Association, the Reserve Bank of Australia, Treasury, Australia Post and suppliers of cash-in-transit services—a whole set—that were seeking to be able to negotiate to try to reach a resolution for continued cash-in-transit services on acceptable terms. As a condition of that interim authorisation, we required that there be public reports monthly in relation to the discussions, because it was quite a significant authorisation that we enabled for those negotiations. We have just this week received the first report, and it’s available on our register. 

Senator ROBERTS: Banks are refusing to accept or issue cash to profitable small players like Commander Security. This company has been de-banked by the big four and now even a customer owned bank. Banks are closing branches, pulling out ATMs and refusing to give cash to their own customers in a situation where identity and use of cash has been established. Cash is, in effect, a competitor to the bank’s dream and the customer’s nightmare of making a fee on every transaction and service every person makes. Are banks misusing their market power to eliminate cash as a competitor to their own electronic payment systems and drive customers to fee-paying services? That’s what it appears to be. 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: We do currently have a misuse of market power action relating to financial services in the court against MasterCard. We certainly look closely at misuse of market power questions in relation to financial services. There are a series of complex questions in there, including on the closure of branches, which APRA does monitor and report on. We have also reported on our concerns in relation to the manner in which there is muted competition between the banks—for instance, in relation to retail deposit products—and sought recommended regulation that will better inform customers so they can better exercise choice in the products that they acquire. It is difficult to separate what changes are occurring commercially because of the changes in the economy— 

Senator ROBERTS: Yes, it is difficult to know who’s the horse and who’s the cart. 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: Exactly—what the boundaries are. But we do look at all these questions very carefully, both in terms of enforcement and in terms of monitoring, and we are hoping to continue financial services monitoring because we think they are essential services for Australian families. 

Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware of the Senate inquiry into the closure of rural bank branches? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: Yes, we are. 

Senator ROBERTS: It seems quite clear from the one that I’ve taken part in that it’s the banks driving the reduction in cash. It seems very clear to us, but, anyway, that’s a matter for you. Banks are refusing to provide banking services to their customers. It’s not just private cash handling companies; it’s bullion dealers and legitimate cryptocurrencies being de-banked. Last week, Bankwest limited how much their customers could spend on buying crypto. Is this another case of the banks misusing their market power to harm the operation of a competitor, and is it worthy of your scrutiny? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: The ACCC participated in a working group and taskforce, together with APRA, the Reserve Bank, AUSTRAC and Treasury, with a concern about de-banking. One of the recommendations from that was that there needs to be better data collection, to be able to better measure and monitor the pattern of and conduct in de-banking, and also that there needs to be more clarity in terms of the anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing requirements, which are bases upon which banks say that they need to make risk assessments and, at times, de-bank. So there was a desire to try to reduce that conduct. 

CHAIR: This is your last question. 

Senator ROBERTS: Something that few people seem to be aware of—I’m guessing you are aware of that—is that the major banks, the big four banks, would seem to be one bank with four logos. I say that because their services are similar, their strategies are similar and their modes of operating are similar. They’re largely owned, as I said, by super funds who don’t take an active interest and by mums and dads who don’t take an active interest. That leaves a controlling interest in the hands of four or five major, predatory global companies: BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, First State and one other. They control, it seems, the big four banks. The banks have enormous power here. They have enormous legal power. They’ve got deep pockets to hire the best lawyers. They’ve got complex regulations that they can hide behind and with which they can really beat up on an individual. They’ve got enormous market power. I think they have 90 per cent of the cash deposits. They have enormous financial power, and, as I said, they hide behind regulations. 

CHAIR: This is a very long last question, Senator Roberts. 

Senator ROBERTS: Is there any thought of giving scrutiny or understanding to the companies that I mentioned—BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, First State—and their influence over each of the big four banks that they control? 

Ms Cass-Gottlieb: We’ve certainly been contemplating the benefits of continued monitoring, particularly in relation to key services that the banks provide. Also, a part of the Suncorp-ANZ decision looked at concerns in terms of the capacity of the major banks with very similar business models to engage in a problem of what is called ‘concerted effects’. In effect, their responses to competitive signals are similar because of their similar structures. So we are conscious of those risks, and we do seek, both through monitoring and through powers that we have in relation to concerted practices, to watch carefully for these sorts of concerns. 

Senator ROBERTS: We do know that BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street control a lot of major companies around the world and control a lot of companies and a lot of industries. 

CHAIR: Thank you, Senator Roberts. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. 

Recently, supervision of the Banking Code of Practice moved from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), who have initiated a thorough review of the code. This first draft of the new code has many shortcomings, and I asked about these. From their answers, it is clear that ASIC are across the shortcomings in the code and I felt they are serious about making the new code a better document that provides stronger protections for customers. A lot of protests have quite rightly occurred around the closure of bank branches.

The truth is that banks are allowed to do that because the banking code contains no provision requiring the banks to provide face to face banking. Also missing from the new code is a guarantee of access to cash and a guarantee of banking services. Currently banks are de-banking competitors like bullion dealers and crypto exchanges. They are also closing bank branches and ATMs to reduce access to cash which they can’t easily monitor or control.

I was encouraged by the answers from Deputy Chair, Sarah Court of ASIC and I look forward to the next draft of the 2024 Banking Code of Practice. Bank customers deserve better protections than APRA have provided in recent years.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Can I start by confirming our meeting will occur on 19 March on the subject of the security of companies offering bullion storage and sales services in Australia. 

Ms Court : That’s right. 

Senator ROBERTS: I look forward to that. Total compensation for the ‘fee for no service’ scandal was $4.7 billion. Since those compensation payments, do you believe financial institutions have fixed their systems and this practice is no longer happening? 

Mr Longo : I’ll ask Deputy Chair Court to comment on that. I think it’s a truism that systems and processes of the banks are always in need of improvement and enhancement, so one can never be certain that those systems will be fixed forever. We certainly think a lot of progress has been made coming out of the royal commission. I know Deputy Chair Court has done some work in this area as well. 

Ms Court : I don’t think I’d ever presume to say that the issues of fees for no service or the compliance and legacy systems of large financial institutions have been completely fixed. I think there’s been progress made. As you say, there have been billions of dollars of remediation. There have also been multimillion-dollar penalties applied by courts in relation to that conduct. We continue to have cases where fees for no service are being alleged, and we are continuing to investigate them and take court action where it’s appropriate. 

Senator ROBERTS: That’s pleasing. Do you think the amount of compensation, $4.7 billion, met or exceeded the revenue that was illegally obtained by financial institutions for the ‘fee for no service’ scam? 

Ms Court : I think you’d have to ask that question of those institutions. The remediation figure is eye watering. 

Senator ROBERTS: I will turn now to the new mandatory Banking Code of Practice that ASIC will consider recommending to the minister. The Australian Banking Association, led by former Labor premier Anna Bligh, has extended coverage to include buy-now pay-later providers by including them in the phrase, ‘Each bank will exercise the care and skill of a diligent and prudent banker.’ Does that phrase provide a quantifiable legal protection to customers, or is it utterly meaningless? 

Ms O’Rourke : I’m happy to assist in relation to the banking code. I might just clarify. In your introduction, you referred to it as a mandatory code, and you also referred to it being taken to the minister. Industry codes aren’t mandatory. You’re right that the banking industry has developed one. The approval process is also one that, if chosen by the industry association, comes to ASIC. It’s an ASIC approval process, not a ministerial one. 

If I come to your particular question about the terms of the code, the code that exists now commenced in 2018. I think, as you’re alluding to, the Australian Banking Association, who wrote the code, and its members, who signed up to it, have been going through a process of updating the code and have proposed to bring it to ASIC for additional approval—for approval under the statutory scheme. One of the issues that are live in that process is the question of the inclusion of the phrase ‘prudent and diligent banker’, which you’ve called out. In the existing code, the one that exists now that was approved in 2018—and there have been some revisions approved since—that phrase is included. In the proposed code, the draft code that’s been prepared, there’s a question about whether it can come out on the basis that it’s duplicative of the responsible lending obligations that already apply to bankers. So that’s the issue. 

As to its progress, I’ll give you some further information. The ABA had done a consultation process to develop the draft code. We now, at ASIC, are doing a consultation process associated with our consideration of approving it because of the importance of these codes to all banking consumers—all Australians. These codes really matter, and making sure that they are suitable in their content and meet the statutory requirements is something we take very seriously. We are undertaking a consultation process. That particular question is one of the ones we’re seeking submissions on and very carefully considering. 

Senator ROBERTS: I think I’ll be coming back to that, Ms O’Rourke. I’ll move quickly because the chair’s needing to hurry. 

CHAIR: I’m staring at you, Senator Roberts, but thank you for proceeding quickly. 

Senator ROBERTS: I raised the fee for no service earlier for a reason. The clause in the proposed Australian Banking Association code, chapter 12, No. 31, used to read that the bank ‘will make sure we have your agreement’ on charging a fee for a new service. That clause has been removed from the new code, meaning the bank does not need to get a customer’s permission before charging them a fee for a new service. If a bank doesn’t get my permission, under the new code can they simply start charging me for services that I did not agree to or may not know I’m being charged for? Are they unwinding your good work on the fee for no service? 

Ms O’Rourke : I’m not particularly aware of that proposed deletion. I think I might take on notice any background relevant to that. The general answer is that there are provisions widely in the code that would be relevant to whether fees for no service can be charged, and indeed I think my colleagues have spoken to the important work ASIC has taken to ensure that that sort of activity does not occur. 

Senator ROBERTS: Can you show me in the draft code where it provides a guarantee of face-to-face banking services that means access to a bank branch? 

Ms O’Rourke : I think that in both the existing code and proposed code the question around branch closures, which is what I think you’re alluding to, is covered by reference to a protocol that exists about the provisions that a bank will consider on decisions as to whether or not it provides banking services in particular communities. It’s not framed, as far as I’m aware, in the way that you’ve framed it: as a right. I can’t point to that, if that’s what you’re seeking. 

Senator ROBERTS: Debanking is proving to be a real problem across businesses that are alternatives to the bank system. Banks are debanking bullion dealers, crypto brokers and third-party cash transit companies. Is there anything in this code of practice that guarantees banking services for customers who use cash, bullion or cryptocurrency? 

Ms O’Rourke : I’m going to have to take that on notice. 

Senator ROBERTS: Is there anything in this draft that guarantees access to the King’s currency—cash? 

Ms O’Rourke : Not that I’m aware of, but I’m happy to take it on notice. 

Senator ROBERTS: Can you show me where it says something like, ‘We undertake to not terminate your banking services for your political views unless a criminal conviction has resulted,’ or similar? As written, the code gives no protection for a customer who exhibits wrongthink on social media, for instance. This is a problem. 

Ms O’Rourke : I think that’s a statement. 

CHAIR: Last question, thank you, Senator Roberts. 

Senator ROBERTS: Why is the sentence, ‘We will engage with you in a fair, reasonable and ethical manner,’ being replaced with ‘efficient, honest and fair’? Is there no room for ethics in modern banking, and is the term ‘efficiency’ used so that the bank can say it’s not efficient for them? 

Ms O’Rourke : I think you’re right to point out that that’s one of the important distinctions between the existing code and the proposed one, and therefore it’s one of the areas that we are consulting on to understand stakeholders’ views on that proposed change. I’m agreeing with you that it’s an important issue for us to explore to understand the basis for the proposed change and what the consequences would be. 

Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware that the Consumer Action Law Centre describes the new code as offering no overall improvements in consumer protection? Do you, ASIC, agree with this characterisation, and will ASIC add extra protections yourself before forwarding the code? 

Ms O’Rourke : As I referred to, we’re right in the middle of a consultation process which includes listening to stakeholders about their perspectives on the new code. We’re taking careful consideration of all the issues that are raised before we move to the decision point that I described earlier. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I must say that I appreciate the direct and immediate answers.