The Albanese government’s reckless May budget is an anchor on our economy, overtaxing productive Australians to fund a woke, bloated public sector and wasteful infrastructure like Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop.
Slapping new taxes on small scale investors, such as Crypto, punishing business owners and fuelling inflation through overspending is stifling wealth creation, driving record small business bankruptcies and pricing young Australians out of the housing market.
To fix this mess, One Nation will rebuild Australia’s real productivity through a clear, common-sense model:
➤ Invest $30 billion annually, backed heavily by eager private finance, into cheap, reliable Australian energy, high-speed regional rail, roads, ports, and fuel security.
➤ Slash petty red tape alongside UN-driven green and blue tape to restore the freedom to take risks and keep what you earn.
➤ Respect private enterprise to generate real, non-taxpayer-funded jobs, while expanding funding to the ACCC and the Administrative Review Tribunal to protect worker rights and maintain fair competition.
One Nation will build real wealth and opportunity for every business and worker across Australia.
Polls confirm what we already know: working Australians trust One Nation to deliver.
Transcript
Taxation is an anchor on productivity growth, reducing wealth creation for all Australians. The Treasurer has produced a budget that overtaxes and undersupports productivity. The social alliance—the Labor Party, the Greens and teals—have never seen a dollar they don’t think belongs to the government to finance their woke UN social agenda. The Treasurer learnt, from the weight of public opinion, that his new capital gains tax threatened future productivity within the business sector and the investment market. He fails to understand that when you take too much of people’s wealth, they stop creating new wealth.
One example is young people using small-dollar investments in things like crypto to grow their home deposit faster and get into the housing market before they get too old to pay off a 30-year loan, which is what most young people said they intend to do with their capital gains. Because of these new taxes, young people will purchase fewer homes. It’s one example of stifling economic growth in favour of short-term tax grabs.
The government has disincentivised productive risk-takers: investors. Business owners are punished, and overtaxed workers are conditioned to blame their employers for economic hardship. This sets workers against workers—more division from a divisive government. Instead, the true culprit is government’s acute failure to contain inflation and tighten its own belt. In fact, the Treasurer is still spending money he doesn’t have on things this country does not need, such as $3.8 billion for Victoria’s Suburban Rail Loop—billions that, like the billions before, will disappear into the pockets of organised crime and eventually produce a railway from nowhere to nowhere that nobody wants, and, according to Victoria’s Parliamentary Budget Office, will cost over $200 billion. That cost is in addition to the fraud and corruption in Big Build projects. The Commonwealth government is just getting started shovelling money into the Allan government’s black hole.
Meanwhile, businesses are collapsing at record rates, and small business bankruptcies are at record levels. The public sector is bloating; two thirds of full-time equivalent jobs that the Albanese government conjured since 2022 are taxpayer funded through some arm of government, notably the NDIS. For years I’ve said that for every job created in solar and wind—so-called renewables—two jobs are lost in the productive economy. Data now verifies this. That’s not sustainable. No wonder the government refused to support my motion to implement indexation of tax brackets to stop bracket creep. This government needs higher taxes to pay for this level of public service growth. Private enterprise can no longer provide the jobs needed to grow the economy and create new wealth for our huge number of new arrivals.
At some point, this Ponzi scheme will come crashing down and a One Nation government will have to clean up the mess. This is how we’ll do it. Real productivity comes from cheap, reliable, Australian sourced energy. It’s good roads connecting regions with cities. It’s high-speed rail lines and Australian controlled ports. It’s fuel refineries guaranteeing supply when the world is in crisis. It’s a competitive construction industry. It’s cutting petty, unnecessary red tape, and green and blue tape from the UN and foreign agencies. It’s high-speed, reliable internet everywhere, including along highways and in regional areas. It’s the freedom to take risks and earn a reward. It’s a reliable nation of stable economic rules to encourage investment. This will be life under a One Nation government; real, breadwinner jobs and the freedom to keep more of your own money to enjoy life.
Our policies detail how One Nation will invest $30 billion a year in Australia’s infrastructure to drive productivity and increase wealth for everyday Australians without having to work harder. Everyday Australians are working hard enough. Polls show One Nation is the most popular party amongst working Australians. We will fulfil your faith in us. A lot of this infrastructure is private finance, not taxpayers. In working with companies promoting new infrastructure projects, I’m amazed to see how much finance is available for these projects. Merchant banks and investors are jack of so-called solar and wind renewables. They want bricks and mortar investments again. We’ll give it to them.
One Nation knows private sector productivity requires placing trust and respect in businesses, freeing them of unnecessary cost burdens to hire staff, reward the hardest workers and voluntarily pay above the minimum wage. To ensure this does not turn into a corporate free-for-all, we have a system of industrial relations tribunals and competition protections. Our policy is to grow the economy, to create wealth and opportunity for all—businesses and workers. This is why our policy is to expand funding for the ACCC and the Administrative Review Tribunal, to protect workers rights. Polls show, as I said, One Nation is the most popular party among working Australians. We will fulfil your faith in us.
A 2011 legislative drafting mistake caused ASIC to apply indexation incorrectly, leading to inaccurate review and late fee charges.
The Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment (Technical Amendments) Bill 2025 seeks retrospective authorisation, deeming previously collected, incorrect fees legally valid after the fact.
Small businesses and employers end up paying the price for a government mistake.
I feel very uneasy about that and dislike retrospective legislation unless it is truly necessary. We do not support this bill.
Small businesses shouldn’t be penalised for government administrative errors, especially during tough economic times.
Transcript
ASIC collects fees from users registering their business entities, such as companies, as part of its regulatory activities. The review fees act provides ASIC with the power to collect fees in relation to review dates for certain entities. Typically, an annual fee falls due on an entity’s anniversary of registration on ASIC’s register. The review fees regulations prescribe the review fees. Regulation 4 sets out how the fees are applied and calculated, including an indexation mechanism, and schedule 1 sets out dollar amounts that apply to particular entities and circumstances. ASIC identified a technical error during a routine review of its regulations—so full credit to ASIC—which affects how indexation was applied to certain fees.
The affected fees are late fees, tenure upfront fees and special purpose company review fees collected under the review fees regulations. The 2011 amending regulations made amendments to the review fees regulations to increase the base rate for certain review fees and continue the annual indexation of those fees using the increased base rate. In addition, these amendments reinserted the same base fee for some review fees, and other review fees were not amended. The indexation provisions applied for all review fees, which did not reflect the intended policy outcome at the time—poor drafting of legislation—nor does it reflect the intent now. As a result, ASIC applied an indexation methodology which resulted in incorrect amounts of certain review fees being charged.
These amendments validate review fees ASIC has already collected and deem the amount of the review fee to be a certain amount. This ensures any review fees charged from 1 July 2011 are valid and that ASIC was authorised to collect the review fees—authorised retrospectively. I feel very uneasy about that and dislike retrospective legislation unless it is truly necessary. This bill, the Corporations (Review Fees) Amendment (Technical Amendments) Bill 2025, is trying to validate a government drafting blunder to make taxpayers liable, even when the government is at fault.
We would not support the payment of late fees as a punitive measure during difficult economic times when the original source of authority is faulty. I think of the small businesses that are impacted. I think of the government agencies that extort fees from many small businesses and other employers. My current view is that we should not support this bill.
During this estimates session with the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART), I asked questions regarding the scale of visa appeals they are reviewing – and it’s worse than expected.
Migration cases now make up 56% of the entire tribunal workload, with student visas alone accounting for 35%. The backlog is astonishing.
77,938 migration cases, 52,452 student visa cases, and 130,983 cases overall waiting for hearing. Protection visas add another 37,830, and even NDIS reviews are climbing.
The tribunal admitted its receiving around 90,000 applications a year, but is only funded to finalise 60,000, meaning the backlog grows by 30,000 every year.
When asked when this backlog is expected to be cleared, the answer was blunt and honest. On present numbers, they have no reasonable expectation.
The tribunal is drowning. A system meant for genuine review is being overloaded, under-funded and pushed beyond capacity, while taxpayers foot the bill for backlog that grows every single day.
Much of the fault lies with Australian universities, who aggressively market their degrees by promising students a fast track to permanent residency. This is often done through third-party brokers employed by the universities.
How long will the Government let the Tribunal drown before doing its job and and fixing this mess?
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: I may have heard, on the tail end of what Senator Cash was saying, you going through some categories, so, if I do, forgive me for repeating them. Which is the largest category of applications for review currently before the tribunal? I think you said it’s student visas.
Mr Hawkins: Yes. It’s in the migration case load. I hope you’re going to be wearing a maroon tie tomorrow!
Senator ROBERTS: State of Origin.
Senator CASH: I’ll even agree with that, as a Western Australian!
Senator ROBERTS: I’m supporting coal today!
Mr Hawkins: The highest case load is migration and the student visas within that.
Senator ROBERTS: What would be the proportion of migration and then the proportion of that that’s students?
Mr Hawkins: If I can say, migration is 56 per cent of our total case load. Within that, students represent 35 per cent of our total case load.
Senator ROBERTS: How many of these applications are waiting for hearing?
Mr Hawkins: Waiting for hearing, which is cases on hand—in migration we have 77,938 on hand. We have 52,452 student visas on hand. Across the total tribunal we have 130,983.
Senator ROBERTS: Wow. No wonder you’re ‘aware’. What are the other major categories for review before the tribunal?
Mr Hawkins: Our biggest case loads are working, skilled and investment visas. We have 13,983 on hand. For protection, we have 37,830, which is 29 per cent of our on-hand case load. For NDIS we have 7,136, which represents five per cent of our case load.
Senator ROBERTS: Although that’s only five per cent, I heard you say that you’re worried about that because of the potential for growth.
Mr Hawkins: Only from the sense of the media talk of what reforms are going to happen. As there’s nothing legislated, I can’t comment any further. As I said to Senator Cash, I’m alert but not alarmed.
Senator ROBERTS: Could I get, on notice, a breakdown of all the categories and their numbers?
Mr Hawkins: Of each list that we have?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes.
Mr Hawkins: I can do that for you.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. You’ve given me the total. This question could be difficult: When do you envisage this backlog will be reduced to an acceptable managed workload? What is a well-managed workload?
Mr Hawkins: I guess a manageable case load is what we are funded to achieve. If it’s 100 per cent case load that we want to achieve, we need to have 100 per cent funding. As I explained to Senator Cash before, an issue we have with our funding is that we do actually have a cap in it, which is based on our ability to accommodate members to be able to do that work. At the moment our cap is 345 FTE of members, which is equivalent to about 60,000 finalisations, but we’re receiving about 90,000.
Senator ROBERTS: There are 90,000 coming in, so you’re going backwards 30,000.
Senator CASH: Every year?
Mr Hawkins: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: What’s the reason for that?
Mr Hawkins: Because we have a cap on our ability to accommodate members at the moment. As I also explained to Senator Cash, some of the initiatives that the Senate has been able to give us, such as being able to do student visas as a decision on the paper, will give us some flexibility as to how we accommodate our members. We might be able to have a number of members being able to do those types of cases from home because there’s no hearing involved. We have an initiative that every member in the tribunal will do 10 per cent of their case load as a student visa. So we’re trying to make inroads in that way as well.
Senator ROBERTS: When do you expect the backlog to be cleared?
Mr Hawkins: On present numbers, I don’t. I cannot have a reasonable expectation.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, any comments to add?
Senator Green: Is there a question, Senator?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes. The tribunal are saying that they’ve got a workload that is increasing, not decreasing.
Senator Green: I think, as Mr Hawkins alluded to in the comments he made, probably before you entered the room—apologies, Senator Roberts—it’s a demand driven funding model. We’re currently considering applications for additional members because we do acknowledge that more members definitely are required. Applications have been received for additional deputy president and senior member recruitment rounds, and the department can take you through the process for those rounds. As Mr Hawkins has alluded to, the Senate has also made some changes to the way that student visas are being considered so they can be considered on the papers, and there are regulations that are imminent to allow that to happen.
Senator ROBERTS: How many members of the tribunal are there?
Mr Hawkins: We will have 423 members as at 1 July, representing 347.5 FTE.
Senator ROBERTS: So you’ll be able to tell us more at supplementary estimates in November?
Mr Hawkins: I certainly will.
Senator ROBERTS: So it’s early days. Is there any way of getting a handle on the cost of each review to the taxpayer?
Mr Hawkins: It’s a very complex formula because every matter is different. For example, a social security matter might take a day; a complex tax matter could take two weeks. So it’s very difficult to determine a cost per decision. We could calculate it on an average basis across each decision, and I could share with you a unit cost which shows that this tribunal today is more efficient than it’s ever been.
Senator ROBERTS: Would you do that, please?
Mr Hawkins: Let me just find the appropriate note. This is allowing for CPI adjustment and a weighted cost per unit. In 2025-26, year to date, our unit cost is $2,250.88.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s for a hearing?
Mr Hawkins: Yes. To give you an indication, in 2020-21 it was $3,053, and in 2015-16 it was $2,769.
Senator ROBERTS: So it’s coming down?
Mr Hawkins: Yes. Where we have to be most efficient is, again, in that funding model, because we are receiving 91,000 applications a year, but we can’t just do the 60,000 that we’re funded for. At the front end we still have to deal with the 90,000 in some way. There are case management events that take place. There’s outreach with those 90,000 cases. Also, it’s very difficult to calculate unit costs because unit costs might be based on a finalisation, but in fact we’re touching matters, all matters, that come in our front door. Of those 130,000 matters that I mentioned before, there are touchpoints all through that process that we can’t account for until it’s a finalisation, so it’s a very complex calculation.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, I won’t ask the tribunal for an opinion but I’ll ask you: is there any work on alternative systems and processes? I’m not suggesting we should do that, but it sounds pretty overwhelming.
Senator Green: I think we’ve taken you through some of the steps that we’re implementing to assist the tribunal with its work. Obviously, merits review is a really important part of responsible and accountable government. Applications that are made, as you know, are made when an applicant disagrees with a reviewable decision; for example, when the government denies someone a visa—or a student visa, in this example. We’re looking at all of the different ways that we can reduce the workload but also provide the tribunal with the resources that they need to be able to make these decisions.
Mr Hawkins: You yourself, Senator, have been facilitating that through the Senate with the reforms that you’ve given us; for example, the decision on the papers. I mentioned before that the parliament has given the president powers to authorise registrars to handle matters more expeditiously. I think Senator Cash before was alluding to what more we can ask for, and perhaps there is space in the decision on the papers area for us to consider into the future, but at the moment we’re going to master the powers that we have.
Senator ROBERTS: So we should know more by the November supplementary estimates. Is this process of using the Administrative Review Tribunal for appeals being exploited by those wishing to stay in Australia who have no right to be here?
Mr Hawkins: That’s not a matter for me to answer.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister?
Senator Green: There are a range of cases and reasons why people make applications. I’ll take that as a comment from you, Senator, rather than a question to me.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/fsKo15CQN9w/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-08-06 16:28:222026-08-06 16:28:26Australia’s Visa System is Snapping Under the Weight
Labor’s record spending and trillion-dollar debt are smashing living standards — driving inflation, hiking interest rates and leaving Australians worse off.
Families are going backwards while Labor taxes harder and spends faster.
One Nation will shrink government, drive down inflation and put more money back in Aussie pockets.
Transcript
Today, Treasurer Chalmers has taken to social media to claim credit for the 2.6 per cent increase in annual GDP, calling the rise the strongest growth in the Australian economy for three years. Has the Treasurer forgotten he’s been in office for almost four years—meaning the Treasurer took over the economy and made it worse!
Putting that aside, how did the Treasurer create this increase? To haul GDP out of negative territory, the Treasurer has spent like a drunken sailor. Almost all of the increase in employment and economic activity in the last year has come from increased government spending, which has to be paid for with? Higher taxes. In effect, the Treasurer has taxed everyday Australians more, and then spent their money faster than the taxpayers would have. As a result, the money supply has expanded 11 per cent in the last year, and our national debt has now passed $1 trillion.
A funny thing about spending other people’s money: it eventually runs out. Already, the government is looking for ways to raise taxes. Capital gains tax increases and increased taxes on superannuation are on the agenda. Even worse, the government is selling off the silverware. The sale of Defence Force property has already been announced—$3.5 billion in extra cash. What was once a strategic asset, which didn’t add to the money supply, will be cash in the bank for the Treasurer to spend—more solar and wind subsidies; more money to the Taliban. Already this government has given the Taliban $320 million.
Selling off the silverware to keep the GDP out of recession leads straight to even higher inflation than we have now. To counter this inflation, already the Reserve Bank has been forced to increase interest rates. The result will be a loss of spending power for everyday Australians, who will have to spend more of their income on their mortgage or rent. Government spending is approaching 28 per cent of our GDP and is heading to over 30 per cent, which offsets the reductions in private sector spending that have resulted from overregulation and a lack of confidence in this Labor government. In the short term, this approach makes the data look better. In the medium term, inflation spikes, and wage growth goes negative, as it has been for much of the Treasurer’s term. If everyday Australians feel like they’re going backwards and working harder, it’s because they are going backwards—especially if they’re paying off a home or renting. One Nation will solve this vicious cycle of economic decline with our policy to shrink the government to fit the Constitution and to fit our means. One Nation took a policy to the last election to reduce the size of government by $90 billion in our first term. That number, from what we can see from Labor, is now looking much, much bigger than we can save. Our policy will reverse Labor’s deficits, stop Labor’s inflation, cancel Labor’s interest rate rises and leave more money in the pockets of everyday Australians.
Black market tobacco and vaping in Australia is a real problem. I raised concerns that, while seizures have increased by 38%, there’s no clear data showing whether that’s actually making a dent in the total illicit market.
Even the department couldn’t tell me how much illegal tobacco is getting through compared to what’s being stopped. They admitted that assessment is still pending in a report from the Illicit Tobacco and E‑cigarette Commissioner.
I asked for clarity on illegal vape consumption, noting that import figures alone don’t tell the story, especially when some products are being made domestically. Again, the answer was that they don’t know how many illegal vapes are actually being used across the country, only how many have been intercepted at the border.
I raised serious concerns about the criminal activity tied to this black market — violence, intimidation and organised crime. Yet no-one present could provide figures on how many violent incidents are linked to illegal tobacco and vaping. I was told that that information sits with law enforcement agencies, not the commissioner.
On the financial side, I asked how much revenue Australians are losing due to illegal tobacco. While officials highlighted that billions in evasion have been prevented through seizures, they still couldn’t provide a clear figure for total revenue lost. I pointed out that estimates suggest the cost could be as high as $8–9 billion annually, which underscores just how massive this black market has become.
What we’re dealing with here is a large, organised criminal enterprise, often driven from overseas, and that we need proper data on the size of the market and the broader social costs. Without that, we’re flying blind.
Finally, I asked Minister Watt directly on whether its excessively high tobacco taxes are driving ordinary Australians into the illegal market by making legal products unaffordable.
True to form, Minister Watt flatly rejected that connection, yet offered no evidence to support that position. I pointed out to him that this approach risks empowering organised crime while reducing government revenue, placing greater burdens on taxpayers.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Mr Reynolds, a constituent says: ‘If the seizures have increased by 38 per cent, what has been the proportion of the total growth in the illicit tobacco market? Has it grown by more than 38 per cent? How do we know that?’ Compliments to you for the seizure, but how do we know if that has had a big impact?
Mr Reynolds: It’s a reasonable assessment that there has been an increase in the amount of illicit tobacco coming into the country. But I’m not in a position to tell you what the delta is. The amount that we get on the border to the amount that is coming into the country is not a figure that I have for you.
Senator ROBERTS: You don’t have it?
Mr Reynolds: What I’d offer is this: the Illicit Tobacco and E-cigarette Commissioner is working through an assessment of what that delta is, and that will be provided in a report to the government.
Senator ROBERTS: Commissioner, when do we expect that report?
Ms Foster: The commissioner gave evidence earlier that she was just finalising the report at that moment.
Senator ROBERTS: So we should see that soon? Will that report contain an assessment or an estimate of the total illicit tobacco market size?
Ms Shuhyta: It will.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. That’s good. How many illegal vapes were consumed in Australia in the last 12 months? I say ‘consumed’ because I understand some are being made here. Importation figures are less relevant than they are for tobacco; is that correct?
Mr Reynolds: I can tell you we allowed 1.2 million legal vapes into Australia and we intercepted six million illegal vapes on the border coming into the country. But I’m not in a position to tell you how many illegal vapes were consumed in Australia during the financial year.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. How many acts of violence were committed in Australia that were directly related to illegal tobacco and vapes? I’m talking about murders, fire bombings, assaults and similar acts or threats of violence. We know from tobacconists that they’ve been threatened. Some have been shut down.
Mr Reynolds: I think that’s really a question for, potentially, the Australian Federal Police—or the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission may have an answer to that question for you.
Senator ROBERTS: Is there someone from the AFP who could answer that—or perhaps the commissioner could.
Ms Foster: The AFP is appearing later this evening.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Does the commissioner have any idea of that? You’re in charge of coordinating stopping this.
Ms Shuhyta: I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, no.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you able to get them on notice?
Ms Shuhyta: I will do my best to work with law enforcement.
Ms Foster: I think the question is best directed to the law enforcement agencies rather than the ITEC commissioner. They will be here later.
Senator ROBERTS: Isn’t the ITEC commissioner overseeing and coordinating everything?
Ms Foster: She’s coordinating the response, but, where there is a specific function like law enforcement, those questions are best directed to the specific agency.
Senator ROBERTS: Commissioner, how much government revenue has illegal tobacco taken out of the budget?
Mr Reynolds: I don’t have that figure. That may be an inclusion in the ITEC commissioner’s report to the government. What I can tell you is that we have prevented $4.4 billion worth of evasion by intercepting 2.5 billion cigarettes and over 400 tonnes of loose tobacco on the border.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for that. Those figures and the number of cigarette sticks you’ve intercepted are pretty impressive, but my understanding is that the government has lost about $8 billion or $9 billion a year on excise due to illegal tobacco coming into the country. We need to understand the size of the overall market, because it’s huge. We also have to understand the costs of the crimes being committed. We’ve got criminal gangs working from overseas, as I’m sure you’re aware, who are taking over tobacco trade in this country.
Mr Reynolds: Indeed. The ITEC commissioner has already given evidence that that report will be provided to government; that’s yet to be forthcoming.
Senator ROBERTS: I must compliment you on your evidence; you’re very direct, which is good. Minister, do you consider the government’s very high tobacco duty is the reason otherwise law-abiding citizens are prepared to buy illegal tobacco for generally a third of the legal price?
Senator Watt: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Any reasons?
Senator Watt: There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that argument.
Senator ROBERTS: You’re joking?
Senator Watt: No.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, is this office designed to make it look like you’re doing something to solve a problem your greedy tax grab created—and your predecessor’s?
Senator Watt: No.
Senator ROBERTS: No data, just meetings—empowering organised crime, decreasing revenue that taxpayers have to make up, and you just say ‘no’.
Senator Watt: You asked me a question, and I said ‘no’.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking you: are you ignoring the data to just put in meetings, empowering organised crime and decreasing the revenue to the government?
The UN’s dire financial situation could save Australia a fortune.
The United Nations is in a state of ‘imminent financial collapse’.
Apparently.
Their decline is moving at a glacial pace. Nations are drip-feeding them cash while the UN negotiates for structural change to how they handle money. Essentially, they want to keep more of it. No thanks.
Since its establishment in 1945, justified with a view to ‘maintain international peace, security, and develop friendly relations among states’, I believe the project has become an expensive failure that inflicts genuine harm on the world.
Far from solving the endemic social and economic problems besieging third-world nations, the presence of the UN – and its credit card – has turned misery and corruption into a sustainable industry further weaponised in the hands of powerful nations that govern themselves in contradiction to everything the UN claims to stand for.
Besides, if the goal is to gather all the nations together to ‘talk about things’ in a neutral space – they can hold a conference, like everyone else.
This is the modern world. We no longer require an Earth-sized bureaucracy to babysit dialogue.
Why is the UN in trouble?
The UN’s recent claims of economic strife come as a direct result of America protesting against its aggressive anti-capitalist, anti-democratic goals and dubious projects. In response, the US has withheld funds and exited key UN bodies.
President Donald Trump successfully sold the point to the American people that they should not pay for the comfort of those seeking the demise of the US hegemony.
That said, much like the fabricated Climate Crisis, the deadline for this UN economic disaster is poorly defined and frequently used as a donation rallying call.
Which is a shame, because the UN can’t collapse fast enough.
We may never be able to convince the ‘it’s just a piece of paper’ Coalition to pull out of the Paris Agreement or unsubscribe from the overreach of the World Health Organisation. If it were to fall apart on its own, the work would be done for us. Freedom is freedom, and we’re not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Still, there does seem to be some truth to the UN’s economic strife.
Everywhere you go, the global bureaucracy is shaking its charity tin next to politicians’ ears.
Unfortunately, an emotionally and morally weak Labor Party – along with a skittish Opposition – govern Australia. They are likely to reach into the pockets of Australian taxpayers to save this ideological failure that somehow dragged itself into our century.
To be clear: Australia must not save the UN.
Let it die. Let it rot.
Allow global politics to heal.
Is the UN really going bust?
Back in October of 2025, Secretary-General António Guterres penned letters to member states complaining about ‘the worst cash crisis in nearly a decade’. A month later, just over 70% of nations had coughed up their dues. The United States, which is unfairly carrying the burden of cost, owes something along the lines of $4 billion. President Donald Trump has little interest in giving them another cent. In response to the collapse of finances, the UN has threatened to shut down their headquarters in New York. Given New York is under communist occupation, it’s unlikely to bother anyone of significance.
Unfortunately, the UN still enjoys five-star travel, first-class flights, buildings occupying the most expensive real estate in European cities, and armies of bureaucrats that would make Stalin weep with envy.
This monstrosity is a long way from ‘tightening its belt’ and even further from dying.
It is sending out desperate cries for help to keep the status quo rather than presenting its financers – us – with a slimmed-down program of essential services. At no point has it tried to show us where genuine benefit can be found or assessed itself for situations where it poured a fortune of money into a situation only to make it worse. Despot nations don’t stop their genocides because the UN frowns in their direction. Indeed, we have seen crimes against humanity rewarded with some of the highest positions of power.
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, told Fox News Digital, ‘The UN elected Beijing’s and Tehran’s loyal agents as “human rights experts” – without a ballot, without shame. These regimes persecute minorities, jail anyone who speaks freely, and rule through fear and censorship. The committee that once drafted the UN’s anti-racism convention has now been captured by those who embody racism, repression, and the silencing of truth. It’s an inversion of human rights – and a stain on the United Nations itself.’
And more to the point, the UN does not believe it did anything wrong. This isn’t even its first moral catastrophe.
Do we need the UN?
If we are going to be completely honest, Australia and all of its Western allies would be significantly better off if the UN were to collapse completely.
Economically, socially, democratically, regionally, militarily – we stand to benefit.
Not only is the UN an expense, it has allowed third-world, communist, and despotic states to band together under the protection of a few like-minded states to wield very real global power they never would have achieved on their own.
Why does Hamas have influence on the streets of Sydney? It is absurd. And yet the thread of causality can be followed straight to the UN’s mass migration demand that forced nations like Australia to open its borders to individuals whose views and loyalty remain seated in foreign regimes that, in their free time, chant ‘death to the West’. And we can’t send them back, even if they swear allegiance to international terror groups or threaten to behead Australians in broad daylight. Far from repenting and offering to help Australia regain control of its national security, the UN actively restricts and obstructs our democratic efforts to protect innocent Australians. This is not okay.
UN rulings, policies, and programs have directly disadvantaged Australia, and we have no ability to stop them.
And contrary to what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in his recent pitch to place Australia on the UN Security Council, Australia has never had less influence as a middle power.
The organisation designed to hold world peace by stopping the influence of socialists, communists, fascists, and criminals has become a proxy for their goals.
China’s complex debt-trapping across the third-world, and other networks of influence, leave many of these nations voting as obedient blocs or the West’s most dangerous economic and cultural advisories. Meanwhile, members of other international alliances – Shanghai Cooperation Organisation etc – have already sworn to defy UN rulings. As some of their members hold veto power at the UN, these orbiting structures that circle the UN override its decisions without anyone noticing.
For example, if a nation decides slavery or child marriage is acceptable in defiance of the UN, the veto nation prevents the UN from acting against it. In return, that nation – almost always despotic – promises the votes and support of nations in other alliances. It’s like a disease holding the world’s tyrannies together that no one wants to talk about because they’re frightened Western power will evaporate if the curtain is pulled away.
Donald Trump has effectively asked why the West pays roughly 80% of the UN’s operational costs for the privilege of losing its strategic grip?
Have human rights advanced as a result of the UN – or does the organisation stand around and watch the Caliphate of Islamic terror creeping through African nations where Christians are tortured and executed?
It is not controversial to say that human rights are declining.
Part of the problem is that the UN spend all their time ‘monitoring’ like they ‘monitored’ the Rwanda genocide. Like they would monitor an attack on Australia or Taiwan. Always monitoring. The UN presents themselves as powerless, passive observers after tugging on all the strings.
When the fluffy language of ‘peace, nature, and aid’ are stripped back to the cold mechanics of the UN, it becomes a despotic, wasteful, dangerous, and bloated machine housing our rivals who watch our collapse while drinking champagne we paid for.
Australia receives no benefit from its membership – only punishment.
And if it were to collapse, every Western ally would find their hold over world power significantly strengthened. Trade, culture, and the threads of the Enlightenment would once again form the spine of power. Influence would hold on its merits, not shadowy backroom handshakes.
As for the money… It is difficult to feel sorry for the UN.
It has not occurred to the UN that the member states it’s trying to fleece might have more money for their bureaucracy if the UN hadn’t forced first-world countries into trillions of dollars of ‘climate expenditure’ which has eaten away their treasuries.
You can have Net Zero or a gravy train. Not both. And the UN might end up being a casualty of its own greedy policies.
Indeed, Trump coyly shrugged, indicating he didn’t know the US had slipped behind on its payments … then questioned if other nations could solve the problem ‘very quickly’ via paying their share. It is the same lesson he dished out to Nato.
It was then that the US Secretary of State, Macro Rubio, cocked an eyebrow and asked, ‘What is the purpose of the UN?’ Bewildered journalists stared back dumbly.
‘The UN is supposed to be a place where you can peaceably resolve global conflict … right now you have [Iran] who unlawfully, criminally, and illegally taking possession of an international waterway.’
Looks like the US might want something tangible for the tens of billions they’ve poured into the UN over the years.
Donald Trump was far harsher a year or so ago when he spoke from their own podium:
‘Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should – too often – it is actually creating new problems for us to solve. The best example is the number one political issue of our time: the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It’s uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined. The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders.’
And that is exactly what Australia has done, at huge cost to the taxpayer, mostly under the watch of the Coalition, and with Angus Taylor in his former role of Energy Minister.
The US has since withdrawn from 31 UN agencies to ‘end American taxpayer funding and involvement in entities that advance globalist agendas over US priorities’.
Australian politicians are still begging at the door, trying to get in.
Something tells me Trump will watch the financial collapse of the UN with a smile and it may go down in history as one of his greatest victories over the undemocratic institutions that have manipulated, impoverished, and damaged Western nations.
They have created a class war between nations and a true global ‘democracy’ free to oppress without the safeguards of a constitution, bill of rights, or benevolent monarch. The UN is merely one of many national ‘collectives’ of negotiating blocs where individual leaders, who often came to power without real elections, shape the future of a world where no citizen has a say over the direction of global politics. In short, terrifying.
What does the UN cost the nations of the world?
Its core bureaucracy operates on a (slimmed down) budget of $3.5 billion while ‘everything with a UN tag on it across the world’ sits between $66-75 billion depending on the year. This is an estimate. The true cost is largely unknown.
Then there is the other question … what costs did the UN’s existence create to domestic budgets?
Those are costs so terrifying and vast, they have settled around Australia like a heavy sea fog clinging to the coast. Since 1950, AI estimates the UN has cost global budgets $150 trillion in UN-inspired projects or direct funds. How much of this money benefitted the taxpayers who had it taken from them? I would go so far as to say the UN is the chief culprit in Australia’s present state of economic anguish. It is certainly the reason our business landscape was torn apart during Covid hysteria and our rainforests are being blown up for wind turbines and solar panels.
Generations of Prime Ministers were either scammed, pressured, enticed, lured, or tricked into adopting UN policy goals that have thoroughly screwed Australia.
Worse? They’re not even sorry about it.
Too many of these political leaders continue to protect the UN as some international moral touchstone and would throw money at its collapsing infrastructure knowing full well that cash forms a slush fund for despots, dictators, and terrorists in the third-world.
As we speak, Western money – in the billions – is being poured into Islamic terror states or regions under occupation. Afghanistan, under control of the Taliban, not only receives humanitarian aid while it abuses women and girls with ever more disgusting policies, Azerbaijan invited a Taliban contingent to COP26, COP27, COP28, and COP29 to hunt around for hundreds of millions in ‘climate finance’. In Gaza, UN-branded aid workers were confirmed as either taking part or assisting in hostage-taking and terror activities while unknown amounts of aid either kept terrorists alive or helped furnish their armouries. Yemen, Syria, and Iran all have similar problems with 80-90% of aid hitting the bank accounts of terrorists.
These regimes are effectively farming their own people for poverty to cash in on Western aid. They have no incentive to fix their countries. Indeed, the UN actively encourages them to make the situation worse.
Politicians with an ideological commitment to multilateralism wrap the UN in virtue to protect a narrative of global governance that is just as fake and cynical as the climate apocalypse.
They will stand before voters and preach ‘world peace’ while money they donate from the Treasury lines some violent thug’s palace with gold and our own citizens sleep on the street.
Australian taxpayers subsidise foreign terrorists while hosting Royal Commissions into terrorist acts that are themselves prevented from reaching the truth by the UN ‘social cohesion’ guidelines that ensure people remain peaceful while they are picked off by ‘lone wolves’ with ‘no motive’. Many of these politicians expect to exit politics and personally benefit from the UN platter of job offers. Protecting the UN is in personal interest – a paddock where politicians graze for a few years to fatten their bank balances.
The hypocrisy of the UN goes on… At the height of the ‘climate panic’, reports released showed UN officials spending tens of millions flying around the world first class while staying in five-star hotels. Employees and bureaucrats were living the high life on money that was meant to be spent on ‘world peace’.
In 2017, it was even reported that World Health Organisation staff broke the rules with their combined travel costs exceeding some of their disease budgets. In another corner of the UN, one former head spent half a million on travel.
As always, the people most concerned about the ‘climate crisis’ are least concerned about their so-called ‘carbon footprint’. It’s no wonder no one says anything about the superyachts or private jets arriving for conferences. This behaviour has been normalised.
When the UN Secretary-General says, ‘We simply must find a lasting solution for recurring liquidity problems!’
My reply would be: ‘Shut it down – forever. Problem solved.’
How government greed turned citizens into criminals …
As a government, if you wish to stop a destructive public behaviour – you punish it. This can be through fines, incarceration, or economic coercion (taxes).
If you want to turn a public behaviour into a permanent cash-cow that props up the Budget – you tax it carefully.
Somehow, uniparty greed has found a way to implement a ‘worst of both worlds’ policy surrounding tobacco and nicotine products which has turned smoking into a criminal underworld gold mine.
Between 2010 and 2026, tobacco excise has increased in the order of 490% and returned half the revenue in real terms. People didn’t quit. If anything, there is evidence of Australia’s 30-year trend of decreasing smoking being reversed.
After reaching its lowest level with Millennials, smoking has become ‘cool’ again for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Excessive taxation has destroyed all the good public health work done in this field.
Economically, this is not only a concern for the estimated $11 billion lost excise tax for tobacco.
It also involves the loss of general revenue associated with the full cost of tobacco which previously paid wages, kept stores open, and was re-invested in local communities.
Tens of billions is now being given to the black market where it funds violent crime. This tears apart Australian suburbs and has a follow-on health and economic impact that lowers the quality of life for everyone, not only those directly involved in illegal tobacco. Everything from personal safety to house prices are being affected.
Police have warned that this money, often funneled into crypto, has also been used to expand drug trafficking, firearms offences, worker exploitations, and property damage through activities such as coordinated firebombing.
Worse, if that is possible, the quality and safety of illegal tobacco and vapes is a matter of acute concern. Australians are now exposed to a considerably more dangerous product that was once strictly regulated for safety. And it’s dirt cheap. We are hearing reports of those who gave up smoking previously falling back into the habit because it’s only $10… As for kids, how likely is it that illegal traders are checking them for ID?
Every single feature of the system has been undermined.
It’s clear to me that public health, citizen choice, and the Treasury are in conflict.
And yet they should share the goal of a profitable, legal, regulated industry.
Our current incoherent approach to nicotine products is often referred to as ‘thoroughly broken’ by those trying to petition the government to act.
As Professor Ron Borland said, ‘We are worse off in every conceivable way.’
Tobacco isn’t quite Australia’s re-run of American Prohibition. However, it does share similarities. As with Prohibition, the first question we have to answer is: Should smoking tobacco (and other nicotine products) be legal?
Like alcohol, if the answer is ‘yes’, then any civil penalty or pseudo ban (vaping doctor certificates), should be discontinued.
The second question is: Do we consider smoking tobacco a health risk that costs the state money and which the state actively seeks to discontinue in the long-term?
If ‘yes’ – and this is what we were told for decades through school programs and public advertising campaigns – then the government cannot expect to use taxation on tobacco as a permanent feature in their Budget spreadsheet.
As Clive Bates said, ‘If you push it too hard – the taxes are too regressive, too brutal – then people will defect from the system and they will move to illicit trade and illicit suppliers will come in because there are enormous economic gains to be made.’
The Treasurer must have a replacement plan for tobacco revenue that does not entail continuously raising excise to the point criminals take over distribution.
Experts have suggested alternatives, such as using public information campaigns and alternate products, to wean society off tobacco long-term rather than smacking Australians with tax hikes on an addiction exasperated by economic stress.
To that point, there may never come a time when tobacco and nicotine products exit public use.
As with alcohol, they require a legally and economically stable environment that protects as many people as possible, dissuades new users, and yet does not create opportunities for crime. The most effective measure so far involved banning smoking from bars, clubs, restaurants, and residential balconies which turned it into a social inconvenience rather than a cost burden.
And here sits the heart of the problem.
Tobacco was a huge part of society until earlier suspicions of health risks were confirmed in the 1960s. Community anger and government complicity in a public health catastrophe created a lot of guilt and revenge.
Those days are almost gone. People who choose to smoke today do so knowing the risks and great lengths have been taken to contain those risks to the individual smoker. And so the conversation becomes one about public health costs similar to obesity. How is it fair, it’s said, that the public pay for the self-inflicted health problems of smokers? The numbers strongly suggest that this was never the case. Revenue on tobacco is widely held to cover the health bill. Until now.
The situation today reveals a growing smoking population with a more dangerous product and decreased revenue that doesn’t cover the cost of health, let alone the huge cost of policing the illicit trade. Economic arguments for the current excise level do not hold up to reality.
Scroll through the crime releases…
Permanent surveillance and enforcement on hundreds of tobacco shops. Thousands of online ad takedown orders. Monitoring nation-wide criminal distribution networks. Raiding shipping deliveries. Prosecuting and incarcerating those responsible. Storing and destroying the product. It’s an open-ended revenue drain. And then you have to include illegal vapes, of which the market is in the billions.
If you’re wondering how much policing this costs, the answer is, ‘we don’t know’. No full-cost figure is published. It’s estimated in the hundreds of millions just for policing itself at a state and federal level, while the government admits to investing approximately $350 million specifically for the ‘fight against illicit tobacco and vapes’.
Whatever the number is, it came out of your pocket.
The Australian Federal Police reported that 2.66 billion illegal cigarettes, 510 tonnes of loose-leaf tobacco, and 7.5 million vapes have been seized since 2016. Operation PRINTWALL saw the Australian Border Force intercept 998.5 tonnes of tobacco.
Just this year 20 million illegal vapes worth $1 billion were seized by the Australian Border Force since 2024. The Therapeutic Goods Administration removed another 2.2 million valued at $110.5 million in the same period. They also reported a 300-fold increase in requests to remove online ads for illegal vaping products.
These are not victories so much as temperature readings offering a glimpse at a thriving market.
We must sit down and soberly confront the truth.
Government informs the public that tobacco costs the taxpayer money through the healthcare system, and yet it desperately wants Australians to keep buying tobacco and funding the Treasury. When vapes entered the market, and people began to organically switch products due to health, convenience, and cost – government all-but banned the product. A cynic may say this had little to do with health and a lot to do with an absence of lucrative excise tax. The Treasury saw tobacco revenue evaporating and instead of taking the public health victory – they panicked. This raises serious questions about the government’s motives and ability to solve the current problem.
Listening at length to experts in the industry, it seems clear that we require a carefully timed approach.
The legal market must be restored before law enforcement can come down on the black market.
To do this in the wrong order risks wasting money and encouraging citizens to protect a criminal underworld to facilitate their smoking habit. This would entrench the behaviour we’re trying to resolve. As one expert said, in some communities, illegal tobacco sellers have reached a ‘Robin Hood’ status actively supported by locals. A path back to legal markets must be seamless as it would in any competitive business environment.
The suggestions that I have heard from a variety of people from within the industry include:
Setting the tobacco excise at a level that keeps cigarettes competitive against black market alternatives.
Removing the ban on vapes and adding the same location restrictions as smoking.
Considering an excise on vapes to recoup some lost revenue.
Ensuring that the tobacco and vape products on offer include a wide variety to ensure maximum customer return from the black market to legal channel.
And then…
Severe and serious penalties for black market traders and the criminal gangs involved.
Mandatory sentencing to simplify the process of cleaning up crime.
Reporting channels to allow people to alert police to continued criminal activity.
And as I have said publicly in front of the Panel of Harm Reduction Experts at the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, the solution will not be simple.
The cost of living is very high and will naturally lead otherwise law-abiding citizens toward illicit markets – in general. They don’t want to break the law. Any solution must deal with lifestyle measures right across our economy.
People are suffering and nicotine products are part of their lives.
All measures must be enacted with a least-harm approach to Australians who were pushed toward the black market due to government-enforced economic pressures.
And we absolutely must support the legal businesses who wish to help rebuild the market – this will include protecting these shops and owners from crime gangs. For example, insurers say it has become almost impossible to find cover for tobacconists after arson attacks…
Once the legal and government approach is fixed – the criminal infrastructure will have to be dismantled – rapidly – or it will adopt a new product such as alcohol – which is experiencing an almost identical problem.
Make no mistake, excessive alcohol excise has already started to push people toward extremely dangerous black market product. This is even more concerning than illegal tobacco.
No one can solve a public health problem for a product owned and distributed by the criminal underworld.
What we are witnessing under this Labor government is nothing short of a deliberate assault on the Australian dream.
Labor is systematically killing off the traditional quarter-acre block and removing the option of home ownership from everyday Australians.
Labor want to make us all equal by making everyone poor, destroying the independence that owning a home provides, so that every citizen is forced to rely entirely on the state, or global corporations.
Labor’s “Help to Buy” and low-deposit schemes are complete traps and push up housing prices. These schemes don’t let young people get ahead. Instead, they limit how far they can get ahead. Under “Help to Buy,” you become a slave to the government in your own home.
If you renovate, the bureaucrats pocket a percentage of your equity — for doing absolutely nothing. You can’t refinance, you can’t use your equity to start a small business, and you can’t help your children buy their own home.
Unlike Labor, One Nation has a fully thought-out suite of policies to restore the Australian dream.
I thank Senator Bragg for introducing the Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025, which One Nation supports.
There’s an urgent need for this bill, which restores the Senate’s right to scrutinise regulations issued under a bill. In recent years, more and more provisions which would previously have been included in the bill—hard coded, if you like—are now provided for in regulations which are written by bureaucrats for the benefit of bureaucrats, ministers, donors and mates. These are regulations that, in many cases, are beyond the reach of parliamentary scrutiny. They avoid parliament. We are increasingly seeing not government but dictatorship—a collectivist agenda informed by communist ideology and deployed with complete contempt for the parliamentary process and the large majority of Australians who did not vote Labor or Greens.
The Liberal Party had form on this, yet Labor have normalised it. The Albanese Labor government is in the process of removing the option of homeownership from the reach of everyday Australians. Young people will simply not be able to own their own home or use that home in the way that most in this chamber have been able to. Let me explain.
One Nation opposed the Help to Buy scheme because the scheme ensures that people will, most likely, never fully own their own home—never. In the many, many years that this scheme makes you a slave to the government, in your own home, the government does nothing for you. For example, with any renovations you make, the government benefits from what you pay. Installing a new kitchen for $20,000 means you get only $12,000 in capital appreciation and the government pockets $8,000 in additional equity for doing nothing. If you spend $21,000, you’ll first need to get the government’s permission to modify your own home. You can’t use any equity you do accumulate to refinance and free money up for buying a business, for instance. That’s expressly forbidden. Say your children get into trouble or need a hand to buy their own home. You can’t help them. There is no part refinancing. You’re trapped. If you want to buy the government out, then you have to pay them back in five per cent lots.
Why? Well, the government knows prices appreciate. Taking a loan to pay all of the equity off in one go costs the government money. They miss out on the capital appreciation during the period you’re paying that loan off. Say you want to use your home as security for a personal loan: no. There are no secured loans against one’s own home. They’re expressly prohibited. That’s why we did not support the scheme. We are proud we didn’t support it, because it’s a trap. It’s not about letting our young get ahead; it’s about limiting the amount they can get ahead by. That’s what Labor is doing. As usual, communists make every person equal by making everyone poor. This scheme is a tax dressed up as a helping hand, a solution to the exemption of family homes from the capital gains tax. Nobody stands between this Labor government and the money they want to give away to other people in electoral bribes—sorry, ‘promises’.
One Nation opposes the Albanese government’s low-deposit homeownership scheme, which allows borrowers to get a home loan with a five per cent deposit—or, if they are single parents, two per cent. The government underwrites the mortgage so the bank does not wear the risk. You’ll notice a pattern here: this government is every bit as friendly with Australia’s rapacious banking sector as the Liberals were. Under the low-deposit scheme, the home can’t be valued at more than $1.5 million, and there’s no limit on the income of the applicant or the number of mortgages issued. Don’t you just love this scheme! It should be called the ‘making it easier for high-income earners to buy a house in urban Labor electorates’ scheme.
No wonder the government’s support in recent opinion polls is strongest amongst those earning more than $100,000. It’s the party of the workers no more. The party of the rich is a better description of Labor. No wonder the Liberals have lost market share. Labor is stealing their voters.
One Nation is now the party of the worker and the party of small-business owners who use their home as security to grow their business. Our opposition to the low-deposit scheme has been proven to be the right decision. House prices in capital cities went up by between eight per cent and 10 per cent in the year to January 2026, adding $100,000 to the average Sydney home price. That’s $100,000 more that people will have to borrow to get their home. Thanks, Labor!
The additional demand for homes from these schemes forced the price up and made affording the mortgage harder. A low deposit is no help if you can’t afford the repayments on 95 per cent or 98 per cent of a $1-million-plus mortgage. They’ve done this and destroyed hopes. The combined average price for a home in our capital cities is now $1.14 million.
One Nation policy is to allow first home owners to top up the first home owners’ grant with secured equity from the person’s own superannuation account. We will allow low-income earners to buy with a five per cent deposit against a government guarantee on the mortgage. Why won’t this force up home prices? It will be because of the thing the Albanese government refuses to do: stopping mass immigration.
A One Nation government will deport around 200,000 people who are here illegally and will have a moratorium on new arrivals for three years, creating negative immigration. As Australians engage with the housing scheme, they will find there will be a home available to purchase without the price of homes being pushed up. One Nation policies have been thought through. One policy complements another, and every Australian will benefit. Our policies come in suites—s-u-i-t-e-s—unlike this Labor government, which continues to throw money at problems it never solves because it never thinks things through. They want to look good, not do good. It’s shallow and hurting young people.
Yesterday, the Reserve Bank put up interest rates by 0.25 per cent, which would not have happened if government policies had not driven up house prices by eight to 10 per cent in the last year. Every mortgage holder in Australia is now facing higher repayments because of the Albanese government’s inability to manage government policy. Senator Bragg is right that this bill is necessary to provide scrutiny and to try and elevate the standard of government in this country.
Can I say to the Labor government: for the love of Australia, please, please stop trying to help. You’re making it worse, especially for young people. Let people get about their business, keep more of their own money and more easily pay for their homes themselves. Stop bringing in millions of new arrivals—millions of new arrivals—all of whom need a home in which to live. Stop forcing people out of their homes with the evil land tax, as Labor are doing in Victoria, so that your mates running union super funds can buy up the homes. Every new scheme makes things worse for young Australians. That’s why we don’t support your idiot ideas—your dishonest, ludicrous ideas. Where else should the accountability be forced on the government?
Foreign corporations used to pay 30 per cent withholding tax on housing investments like build to rent. Labor has cut that tax to 15 per cent. It’s been halved; you’ve looked after your corporate mates from overseas. Labor makes it easy for its mates, globalist foreign wealth funds, to rip more money out of Australia and to rip more money off Australians. You lower the tax, and the tax will come out of the people instead. Let’s be clear. This Labor government said to foreign corporate landlords like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and First State—with interlocking ownership, they are in reality BlackRock Inc. Labor said to BlackRock Inc., ‘We’ll cut the amount of tax you pay in half.’ Australians: forget the Australian dream of owning your own home.
Labor’s dream is that you live in a shoebox apartment paying rent to BlackRock Inc forever whilst those foreign corporations pay less tax than you do. Labor has just cut it in half. That’s what ‘build to rent’ means. Whenever you hear ‘build to rent’ from Labor, remember renting forever to a foreign corporate landlord. They will build homes for sure, but Australians will never ever own them. It’s ‘build to rent’ forever. Part of the United Nations and World Economic Forum’s agenda is global control of people and wealth transfer from the people to global wealth funds like BlackRock Inc. This Labor government is helping that along by giving these foreign corporations a big tax cut to incentivise foreign corporations to buy Australian homes.
The bill did not reduce the tax for Australian owners; it brought foreign owners’ tax rate down to the same level as Australian investors. That’s the most telling part of all. This bill only changed the tax treatment of foreign predatory multinational corporations. Is Labor the party for Australia, or is it the party for foreign corporations? Build to rent answers that question. Clearly Labor is for the foreign corporations like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street—BlackRock Inc. That’s why Labor’s policies on mass immigration and housing are designed to destroy homeownership for all young families. Instead, One Nation is for Australians owning their own home. On all this, I told you so for years. I initiated the mass immigration and housing debates four to five years ago and have hammered both.
Only One Nation’s housing policy covers all aspects: supply, demand, construction cost and finance. I’m going to do something a little unusual and quote extensively from Senator Bragg’s dissenting report on the build to rent bill. I hope you don’t mind, Senator Bragg. It goes to the very heart of what’s wrong with the Labor Party. The following passages are taken from the dissenting report following the committee inquiry into the Labor Party’s build-to-rent scheme: Build to Rent has had minimal cut-through in Australia because our tax settings are designed to favour individual, ‘mum and dad’ investors, not institutions. That is appropriate. This legislation seeks to tip the scales in favour of institutions through tax concessions, in order to make Build to Rent projects profitable for industry super funds and foreign fund managers. Labor thinks that institutions need a leg up over Australian first home buyers.
Dr Murray— a witness in the inquiry— was critical of the Bill’s attempted perversion of our tax arrangements: ‘It’s not clear to me why local investors shouldn’t be advantaged over foreign investors in Australian housing. I don’t see that there’s a good argument … for levelling the playing field there. It’s not clear to me, if the intention is to attract super funds into this, why owning your own home via your super fund and renting your own home from your super fund is better than owning your own home and using that money to buy what is the best asset to own in retirement.’ That’s similar to One Nation’s housing policy. Here’s another quote from Senator Bragg: At the public hearing, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (‘ASFA’) suggested that Australians would prefer Black Rock and Cbus be the nation’s landlords, and described mum and dad investors as undertaking a ‘hobby activity’. Really? Do you think the Australian people want to rent their house from a super fund? A hobby activity—come on! Senator Bragg continues: This is the view of a vested interest— that Labor is cuddling up to— Most Australians would not agree with this proposal. Another witness observed that we are seeing a corporatisation of housing in Australia, not from the usual suspects, the Liberal Party, but from the Labor Party, the former party of the workers, headed by Prime Minister Albanese.
A witness said: … pushing mum-and-dad investors out of the housing market will result in less competition. What we’re seeing in the Northern Hemisphere is a horrific new software program called YieldStar, which in Atlanta coordinates rental increases for 81 per cent of rental properties. The board of supervisors in San Francisco has now banned this as a monopolistic practice. There’s just nothing in this legislation that even prepares us for what’s coming … Hence the need for Senator Bragg’s bill. His dissenting report said: The Housing Industry Association pointed to the importance of Australia’s housing market maintaining a focus on individual ownership: ‘… with the association and connection with home and with location, and a sense of place and purpose … All the evidence shows that people who own their own home are far less likely to be incarcerated and more likely to be gainfully employed. All of the evidence shows positive economic, social and cultural outcomes.’ Personal responsibility is a cornerstone of a safe and productive society, I say. Senator Bragg continues: Australians are not interested in subsidising institutional investors. When asked what organisations would be the key beneficiaries of Build to Rent tax concessions, Treasury confirmed that foreign fund managers would be at the centre— Really? Fund managers? Foreigners? How very corporate of the Labor Party! Some of the most alarming evidence from the public hearing was that the passing of this bill could see Australian taxpayers subsidising foreign governments in their investment in our housing market.
Dr Murray warned the committee: I find it interesting because we’ve already even got foreign investment funds doing build to rent. What’s even funnier is that the largest one is a foreign government. We’ve got the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, who owns the Smith Collective on the Gold Coast, which is 1,251 build-to-rent dwellings, and we’re now proposing to offer them a better tax treatment for something they’re already doing—through a foreign government. I find that a bizarre outcome of this proposed bill. It seems Prime Minister Albanese is not only best friends with billionaires like Larry Fink from BlackRock and Bill Gates from ‘Vaccines R Us’ but also best mates with the Islamist Abu Dhabi regime. The dissenting report said: Approaches like Build to Rent endeavour to emulate the corporate housing model which has seen a downturn in the United States housing market. Fund managers have become the predominant landlords in the US. According to the US Government Accountability Office (‘the GAO’), large institutional investors emerged following the global financial crisis, purchasing foreclosed homes at auction in bulk and converting them into rental housing.
Prime Minister Albanese’s housing schemes will lead to foreclosures and misery. This is not an unintended outcome; it’s the point of it. Communists detest homeownership. It provides people with independence from the government, and that’s the opposite of the fundamental purpose of the Labor government, which is to make people reliant on the government. Senator Bragg continues: This corporate housing model, in order to generate a return on investment for institutional investors, relies on individuals being locked into a cycle of perpetual renting.
There is a growing consensus in the US that this model has failed and is hurting prospective first home buyers. Lawmakers from both sides of politics are introducing legislation to limit institutional investment accordingly. While the US is moving away from corporate housing, the Australian Labor Party is forcing Australia is into it.
One Nation is dedicated to all Australians being able to own their own home and to use that home as they see fit. (Time expired)
https://img.youtube.com/vi/RSXFntS1zoc/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-05-28 08:58:022026-06-03 10:58:51The Death of the Quarter-Acre Block
No, Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan, it is not just ‘a piece of paper’.
We’ve heard it before. A cataclysmic policy or international agreement disguised as performative, symbolic, or ‘a piece of paper’.
Anthony Albanese used this underhanded trick during the Voice to Parliament when he claimed the Uluru Statement from the Heart was ‘on an A4 bit of paper – that’s it!’ as if the Prime Minister had somehow forgotten the legislative burden of a parallel race-based Parliament and its entourage of discriminatory instructions, untold billions of cost, and the destruction of ‘equal citizenship’ – forever. To call it ‘a bit of paper’ was a lie.
This point does not need to be laboured. State-based Treaties enacted in defiance of the referendum result have demonstrated the true civic and economic cost.
Which brings us to an even more egregious violation of the truth – this time from the Coalition’s leadership team of Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan.
On a special episode of Sky News Australia, Taylor was asked by a voter (Brett) why the Coalition doesn’t get out of the Paris Agreement if they are serious about ending the Net Zero agenda.
‘We will get rid of Net Zero – we are not proposing to get out of the Paris Agreement because, frankly, it’s not going to change anything we do.’
When One Nation National Executive Director Lee Hanson asked Nationals Leader Matt Canavan to ‘please explain’, he said:
‘Net Zero is not in the Paris Agreement at all. We signed up to the Paris Agreement in 2015. Net Zero didn’t come along until years later … it’s just a piece of paper.’
Significantly worse, when pressed again by Andrew Bolt, Canavan added:
‘We don’t have time for side quests … we don’t have time for symbolic gestures … keep in mind, it’s very important to make the point that Net Zero is not enshrined in the Paris Agreement.’
Parties aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible … so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century…
There are slight variations in wording, so let us look at the definition of ‘Net Zero’ as laid out in the IPCC glossary:
Unless Taylor and Canavan wish to challenge the IPCC and our international partners on the definition of Net Zero, let us put to rest the misleading idea that it does not appear in the Paris Agreement.
It does.
According to Onassis, Farhana Yamin is credited with ‘getting the goal of Net Zero emissions by 2050 into the 2015 Paris Agreement’ and was a key IPCC architect. She later joined Extinction Rebellion. Even Wikipedia says, ‘Net Zero was basic to the goals of the Paris Agreement’ with the IPCC’s follow-up to Paris, the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5*C, popularising Net Zero as a short-hand for the phrase already used in the original document.
This is not in dispute by anyone except, perhaps, the Coalition, who are afraid that admitting the Paris Agreement’s role in tying Australia to Net Zero weakens their political chances against One Nation.
As Canavan rightly said on First Edition eight months ago, ‘I think we should sort this issue out – that would be ideal. I think we should have a debate in the joint party room about our position on Net Zero emissions. The Liberal and National party room has never debated Net Zero emissions despite it being perhaps the most radical socialist plan ever envisioned for the Australian economy.’
If they wish to be honest with the Australian people, whose trust they are attempting to rebuild, they might try admitting that the Paris Agreement exists to codify and coerce the global acceptance of Net Zero into domestic legislation.
And that is exactly what Australia has done, at huge cost to the taxpayer, mostly under the watch of the Coalition, and with Angus Taylor in his former role of Energy Minister.
Far from being ‘symbolic’ or ‘just a piece of paper’, its reach extends so deep into our Treasury and economic system that the Coalition simply lacks the moral fortitude and political ability to claw back control of our energy system and sovereignty.
Paris is not ‘a gesture’, it is the scaffolding that keeps a near-unknowable compliance cost hanging over the Treasury. The Coalition cannot meet its promise to end Net Zero without pulling out of Paris, and it is our opinion that they know this.
The sheer economic burden of ‘Paris’ is the largest silent line item in the Budget, and that does not include the stealth tax it takes from businesses and private citizens as a ‘green cost’ on power bills, additional requirements, or straight-out costs.
What is the Paris Agreement?
It is a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by 195 parties at the United Nations Climate Conference (Cop21) in Paris, 2015. According to its official webpage, it requires economic and social transformation which works on a five-year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by countries. This includes a pledge to reduce ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ regarding greenhouse emissions, and to report on them. Developed nations are ‘encouraged’ to – and do – provide ‘climate finance’ to developing nations. It ‘encourages’ the uptake of green technologies.
Australia then went ahead and formalised this. The Paris Agreement is responsible, directly, and continues to underpin many things, including…
The Climate Change Act 2022, which legislates reduction targets and Net Zero goals. This document holds us, legally, to the Paris Agreement’s statements. This alone includes tens of billions in climate money and references Powering Australia, Rewiring the Nation, and Household Energy Upgrade Fund along with the Powering the Regions Fund, Hydrogen Headstart Program, National Reconstruction Fund, National Electric Vehicle Strategy, Critical Minerals Strategy, APS Net Zero 2030, National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy, Disaster Ready Fund, Australia’s Strategy for Nation, Australian Carbon Credit Units, Safeguard Mechanism, Australian Sustainable Finance Strategy (Sovereign Green Bonds), Net Zero Economy Authority, and the Native Positive Plan. Net Zero Authority which was setup ‘to promote the orderly and positive economic transformation associated with achieving Net Zero emissions’ and its Net Zero Economy Agency and Advisory Board.
And then we have an extensive (but not exhaustive) list of government agencies involved with/tied to the Paris Agreement: Department of Climate Change, AEMO, Clean Energy Regulator, Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Clean Energy Innovation Fund, Australian Renewable Energy Agency, The Climate Change Authority, BOM, and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet – Net Zero Agency.
A hell of a lot of ‘symbolic gestures’, I think you’d agree.
And this does not include any of the state initiatives, the reporting structures, the additional international agreements attached to Paris, or any of the small legal requirements placed upon business.
As I am certain Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan are aware, ‘pulling out of Paris’ means admitting to the extent of its influence.
This is not a piece of paper that can be torn up. Nor is our greatest concern, as Canavan suggested, ‘creating international tension’.
‘We shouldn’t just go around ripping up international agreements for no benefit to our own country … all it would do is create friction with other countries.’ – Canavan
The truth is – no one knows how much the Paris Agreement has cost this country.
There is no ledger or register, and certainly no way of assessing the loss of income and rise of costs due to the influence of Paris on our energy, infrastructure, mining, transport, agriculture, and private sectors.
The taxpayer cost since the Paris Agreement was signed sits at more than $100 billion with the total cost to the public and private sector expected to top $1 trillion by 2050.
An expensive bit of paper…
This is only an estimate assuming the industrial projects succeed. The cost blow-out of Snowy 2.0 and litany of failed or abandoned green projects (such as the Sun Cable), show how easy it is for a Budget to understate the true delivered cost.
And we should note, none of these costings include the replacement of short-lived renewable energy or the recycling/disposal cost. Both of which are assumed to be huge. Nor does it take into account the additional costs of things like … upgrading the entire continent for EV chargers and all the infrastructure that goes along with it or paying out the countless Indigenous land claims that might take place along the regional routes of energy networks.
Despite living in an acute financial crisis with Australians facing homelessness or levels of poverty not seen since their great-grandparents, the Paris Agreement – through our domestic legislation – compels us to gift billions of dollars in ‘climate aid’ to developing nations. We cannot afford this and the only reason we do it is a piece of paper. Australia is giving billions of dollars to the Pacific for a climate crisis that does not exist while the same nations take money from China, the world’s largest polluter, in exchange for resources and military perks. At least Beijing gets something meaningful in return.
These foreign aid groups tied to Paris include, Pacific Climate Infrastructure Financing Partnership, REnew Pacific, Pacific Resilience Facility, Australian Humanitarian Partnership Disaster READY Program, Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific, Weather Ready Pacific, Pacific Insurance and Climate Adaptation Programme, Climate Finance Access Network, Kiwa Initiative, Pacific Blue Carbon Program, Governance for Resilient Development, SPREP Core Funding, and whatever that AFL team and stadium come under…
This takes place while Australian farmers cannot secure insurance for flood or fire, are stuck with dirt roads and sub-quality energy, and cannot build something as simple as a dam or fence without excessive interference and added costs.
And yet we gift these things – and more – to other nations with the money our poor farmers give to the Treasury.
It’s easy to see why Donald Trump made pulling out of Paris a priority. The US received no punishment for doing so and has enjoyed a significant trade and economic boom since. They have already saved billions while not receiving any tariffs or sanctions. The worst you could say is they lost the prestige of ‘climate leadership’ but with the world’s worst emitter – China – crowned as a leader, who wants that title?
Why pull out of Paris? Why indeed.
‘I’m immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off. The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.’ – Trump
Don’t worry. Shortly after ditching ‘Net Zero 2050’, the Coalition are now getting rid of ‘Net Zero’ entirely without unpicking any of the Net Zero infrastructure and still reporting this non-change in line with the Paris agreement.
At this point, the Coalition appear to be climate cult alcoholics, pledging to attend AA meetings to keep the voters happy and then catching up at the pub. That’s okay, because they’re in the meetings. The pub is ‘just a place’. It doesn’t mean anything. Some people don’t drink at the pub. Refusing to pull out of Paris is a failure of grand old Australian tradition of the ‘Pub Test’.
This week, we have watched the Coalition rightly mock the Prime Minister for ‘changing his position’ on tax policy within the Budget – and yet how is this different to Canavan’s statements?
On June 14, Canavan posted the result of a vote from the NSW Young National Metropolitan Branch that read:
57 Paris Agreement
That Conference call on The Nationals to advocate for the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement to: a) restore national control over emissions targets and energy policy, and; b) ensure access to affordable and reliable energy, food, and manufactured goods for the Australian people.
Canavan’s post discussed Net Zero and Paris as if they were intrinsically linked.
In a Courier Mail article where Canavan admits ‘we never conducted a full cost-benefit analysis of adopting Net Zero’ he adds ‘Trump is at least doing what he says and has pulled out of the Paris Agreement’.
In a post from 2025, Canavan said to a man who runs a food distribution company, ‘Hopefully he encourages more business people to say what they really think, including if they think we should get out of the Paris Agreement SCAM.’
Is it a piece of paper or a scam?
‘Australia should leave the Paris Agreement. Ever since we signed up to Net Zero, we have had soaring prices, skyrocketing interest rates, and witnessed most other nations completely ignoring their commitments.’
Perhaps we should finish with Canavan’s words.
‘Now that the world’s biggest economy [the US] has pulled out of the Paris Agreement, it is just common sense – and a matter of time – that everyone else does too.’ And ‘There is no reason Australia should remain in Paris when China, India, Indonesia, and now the US, are not.’
Quite so, Matt, we completely agree.
It is a shame you ‘changed your position’ after moving from a spirited backbencher to co-leader in an opposition dominated by the Liberal Moderates who have made their commitment to both Net Zero and the Paris Agreement quite clear.
We cannot know if this is a genuine change of heart or a political concession to a Coalition partner hunting down Teal seats at the expense of the nation. (A doomed and dishonest venture by the Moderates who will never win back Blue Ribbon seats while misleading the taxpayer about Climate Change politics.)
However, it seems obvious a Coalition government, without One Nation to keep it honest, has no intention of ending Net Zero – not in the legislative ways that matter.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Image-2-1.jpg?fit=2048%2C1510&ssl=115102048Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-05-22 05:38:242026-05-22 05:38:33The Monstrous Reach of the Paris Agreement
In our Budget Reply, we had so much to say about saving this country that Senator Hanson ran out of time to deliver it all.
One Nation is offering a fundamentally different direction for Australia — one rooted in proven, common-sense economic principles.
➡️ Cheap, Reliable Energy: Ditching the “green” agenda to invest in coal and nuclear.
➡️ Real Wealth: Backing the local industries that actually build this nation.
➡️ Lower Taxes: Putting money back into the pockets of hard-working Australian families.
➡️Less Bureaucracy: Listening to engineers and physicists, not climate bureaucrats.
Transcript
For all the talk about this budget, many issues are all too familiar. Revenue is up from $773 billion to $815 billion. Expenses are up from $812 billion to $833 billion. Gross interest payments are at $27 billion, rising to $40 billion over the forward estimates. Budget deficits are forecast to balloon by another $100 billion over the next four years. Interest-bearing debt will climb another $300 billion to $1.3 trillion. Businesses are collapsing at record rates—almost 50,000 insolvencies since Labor took office. Productivity is stuck at six-decade lows. Eight out of 10 new jobs are now created by government because the private sector has become so disillusioned. Business confidence and domestic investment have fallen to 1990s recession lows. Our inflation remains the highest in the developed world.
Australian families have endured 15 interest rate hikes, pushing more than one million households into extreme mortgage stress. GDP per capita has fallen in 10 of the last 13 quarters, and 337,000 households can no longer pay their energy bills—double the level of five years ago—as power prices continue to surge.
Labor will introduce the working Australians tax offset. It’s less than $5 a week in relief and doesn’t kick in until next year, an election year. The government wants you to be grateful for 68c a day off your tax. That tax offset will be completely rubbed out by bracket creep. Bracket creep means working Australians will pay more in tax because of inflation. The government profits from higher inflation. It’s a stealth tax, a trap for the next election and an advertising slogan for 2028. They used the same trap in their election advertising in 2022. If anyone dares to refuse passing a useless, less than $5 tax cut, they will be accused of not supporting tax cuts. While Australians will receive just $2.6 billion back in the one-off WATO, they’ll pay tens of billions more in taxes because of bracket creep.
One Nation tried to end bracket creep by indexing income tax thresholds to inflation, ending the stealthy tax increases. Labor, the Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens refused to support it. Instead of the measly $250, ending bracket creep would put thousands of dollars a year back in working Australians’ pockets. We don’t need Labor to protect Australians; we need to protect Australians from Labor.
The tax changes in this budget, including on discretionary trusts, will suppress investor appetite and speculative capital, forcing these businesses to set up in jurisdictions with no impediments. Capital will always, always follow to where it is most loved.
This budget reveals a political culture that relies evermore heavily on centralised bureaucracy, dependency on the state and short-term intervention. That is the Labor way. Forget the spin about intergenerational equity; it’s being used as an excuse to break election promises. True equity does not punish those who worked hard, took risks, built businesses and paid their taxes. It does not resent aspiration or success. Real intergenerational equity means giving young Australians the same opportunities their parents had—the chance to own a home, raise a family, start a business and get ahead through hard work. Young people are not struggling because older generations succeeded. They are falling behind because governments have chosen subsidies and wealth redistribution over allowing free enterprise to flourish.
On the forward estimates, our total liabilities will exceed $1.9 trillion—a burden to be repaid by our children and grandchildren. That is not equity. That is hypocrisy. Changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax will further dampen economic activity, push rents higher and reduce housing supply. As a self-proclaimed scholar of Paul Keating, the Treasurer might have reflected on what happened in 1985 when these same policies were tried and had to be reversed two years later.
Housing is a national crisis only since Labor took office, and I say ‘crisis’. More than 40 per cent of the cost of building a new home is government taxes and unnecessary compliance costs. One Nation will take a different approach. We will slash the GST to zero on building materials for homes up to a value of $1 million for the next five years. Rapid population growth without matching supply is a recipe for declining living standards. This is not about blaming migrants. It’s about recognising limits. But this government has no interest in reducing migration, for all the talk. It expects to increase visa application fees from $4.7 billion today to $7.1 billion by 2029-30. Elevated migration is a money spinner. Canada cut migration sharply from 2024 and has now enjoyed 18 straight months of falling rents and easing house prices, something we have strongly advocated for.
We will introduce income splitting for every family with at least one dependent child. A single earner on $120,000 with a stay-at-home partner would be around $9½ thousand a year better off. We will exempt insurance from the GST, and we urge the states to drop stamp duty on it as well. Affordable insurance ultimately reduces burdens on taxpayers. We will allow aged pensioners and veterans to work as much as they want without losing any of their pensions or health card benefits.
For more than a decade, One Nation has consistently argued that Australia must strengthen domestic resilience, including strategic fuel reserves, reliable energy systems, food and water security, and sovereign industrial capabilities supported by true nation-building infrastructure. The current liquid fuel crisis has not only exposed our domestic unpreparedness but signalled to adversaries how vulnerable we would be in a conflict. Building a strategic reserve is a step in the right direction, but it is still not enough to build resilience and liquid fuel independence. The total cost of not having sufficient supplies will always outweigh the net cost of having them in a crisis.
One Nation will cut the red, green and black tape that is strangling projects and fast-track major approvals, especially energy, to a maximum of six months. We will ditch net zero, exit the Paris Agreement and axe the climate change department, saving $30 billion in the process. We will back coal and gas and support bringing nuclear power to bring down prices, restore reliability and guarantee national energy security. Next week, I will introduce a bold new gas policy that underwrites our vast sovereign resource assets for decades to come. It will provide real equity investment and genuine skin in the game, where our healthy dividend will help pay down the debt racked up by successive governments.
We have listened extensively, and we will work with industry, not against it, in genuine partnership. We will bring back our mining and resources industries, the bedrock that funds schools, hospitals, roads and defence. A strong nation leverages its natural advantages. It does not demonise them. One Nation will swiftly move to get rid of impediments in an increasingly competitive global environment and restore our status as a nation that rolls out the red carpet in resources rather than roll it up. We are backing the Capricorn steel project, to connect coal in Queensland’s Bowen Basin to iron ore in Western Australia’s Pilbara region with a rail line that will open northern Australia to development. The project is strongly backed by Australian investors and is aimed at making Australia a major global supplier of high-quality steel. It will require the Inland Rail project, now abandoned by Labor, to be completed and extended to the more suitable Port of Gladstone, in Queensland. It will be the foundation for a national rail circuit that effectively circumnavigates the Australian continent, providing freight efficiencies and improved defence logistics. These are no longer abstract debates. They are national security imperatives.
In agriculture, we will ban the further sale of controlling interests in freehold farmland to foreign investors and limit the sale of leasehold farmland to a maximum of 25 years. We will ban foreign ownership of water and return balance to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. One Nation strongly supports the modern hybrid Bradfield scheme to improve water security, open new areas to farming and improve food security and exports. We will build new dams and water infrastructure, reintroduce drought payments and re-establish a federal government backed rural lending fund to protect farmers through other natural disasters.
Importantly, we will restore accountability. Australians work hard for their money, and they deserve a government that shows the same discipline. Successive governments have failed to tackle a culture where people in charge of creating multiple white elephants pay no price for their commercial illiteracy. Snowy 2.0, which has blown out 21 times—to $42 billion—is but one egregious example. One Nation will ensure past, present and emerging failures will no longer be transaction free for those responsible.
We will abolish divisive cultural departments and race based programs that divide Australians by skin colour or ancestry. Every Australian will be treated as equal under one flag and one culture. Help will be given on the basis of genuine need, not race. No more special privileges—equal rights for all, and special rights for none. There will be no more taxpayer-funded welcome to country rituals. Unity builds strength; division destroys it.
Our Defence Force must focus on operational readiness, capability and deterrence, not morale-sapping identity politics. One Nation will restore pride in wearing the uniform and give them the latest equipment to carry out their duties. We won’t sell off our historic sites of symbolic significance to cover irresponsible spending.
Australians are not asking for miracles. They are simply asking for a country that works again. One Nation continues to attract practical Australians with real world experience—people from finance, investment, trade, engineering, farming, small business, building, energy, manufacturing and defence. These are men and women who have built things, employed people and delivered results outside the Canberra bubble. Australia does not need more career politicians serving vested interests. One Nation believes the government is there to serve you. This budget only goes to prove yet again that this government believes you are there to serve it.
In closing, Australia stands at a crossroads. For too long, Labor’s failed experiment of reckless spending, crippling regulation, net zero ideology and wealth redistribution has driven businesses to the wall. It’s crushed living standards, saddled our children with debt and stolen the Australian dream from an entire generation. A nation loses hope when it loses vision. Australia now has near a trillion dollars in debt and nothing to show for it. One Nation will break the green, red and black tape that has tied us down. We will work with the natural strengths of the assets on our balance sheet. We have iron ore, coal, gas, cattle, rain, cotton, gold, copper, oil and so much more. Australia should be a powerhouse, but the major parties lack the management skills for us reach our potential. It is perverse that a government and an opposition believe they can change the weather, and are prepared to waste ultimately hundreds of billions to do it, while they mock the idea of a version of the Bradfield scheme that would open the massive potential for irrigation of the rich but dry soils of the western districts. It is perverse that a government and an opposition that came up with the biggest construction fiasco on earth, the $42 billion Snowy Hydro 2.0, cannot complete the Inland Rail from Melbourne to Brisbane, which would open up the intermodal efficiencies and commercial potential of the inland corridor.
We are covering the land with windmills and solar panels and, in turn, delivering— (Time expired)
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Hanson, are you seeking the call?
Senator Hanson: I seek leave to finish my speech.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Is leave granted? Leave has not been granted, Senator Hanson.
Senator Hanson: I seek leave to table my speech.
Leave granted.
“We are covering our land with windmills and solar panels and in turn delivering the dearest and most precarious electricity grid our nation has ever had, when we had the cheapest coal fired power and sitting on one of the greatest coal resources in the globe.
One Nation does not care about major party sneers. We care about handing our children a better opportunity than was handed to us by our parents, currently it is the other way around.
One Nation will reallocate the resources from the fool’s errand of Australia changing the weather to invest in coal fired power, nuclear, irrigation, freight, rail, ports and roads. We will work with businesses as partners in these projects.
One Nation will listen to civil engineers, nuclear physicists, and research scientists in medicine instead of climate change bureaucrats. These assets on our nations balance sheet allows us to pay for expenses on the Profit and Loss. These assets build a nation that can repay its debts. One Nation is offering a fundamentally different direction -one rooted in proven, common sense economic principles. We’ll lower taxes on working families, slash regulation that strangles enterprise, deliver abundant and affordable energy, and back the industries that actually create real wealth and opportunity.
We will never pretend we know better than you how to run your own lives. That is why we are determined to hand power back to the Australian people where it belongs.
We will reward hard work and aspiration, restore fiscal discipline, and put Australian families and businesses first once again.
One Nation’s word is our bond – and we have three decades of unwavering policy consistency to prove it.
We hope to earn your trust to implement the bold change Australia desperately needs.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-21-215100.jpg?fit=676%2C336&ssl=1336676Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-05-22 05:32:242026-05-22 05:32:36Budget Reply: One Nation’s Blueprint to Put Australians First
