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Unjabbed Lockout

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This week with Marcus Paul I discussed Remembrance Day, the Queensland Government’s announcement the unvaccinated would be locked out of society and the climate debate.

Transcript

Malcolm Roberts, good morning, mate.

Good morning, Marcus, how are you?

Well, thank you. What does Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day, the 11th of the 11th mean for you?

It means we commemorate the fallen, and also the contribution they made to our country and to protect our freedoms.

Absolutely.

It also brings back an awareness and a responsibility that we have to preserve what they gave us, what they fought for, for us. And also, it reminds me, I can still remember, not long after I was sworn into the Senate, driving from the War Memorial in Canberra, and there’s a long avenue, I think it’s Commonwealth Avenue, I can’t remember.

Yes, I think it is, yeah. It’s beautiful there.

Yeah, and looking at–

It’s gorgeous.

Looking at Parliament House on the Capital and thinking, “Gee, I wonder if one day I’ll have to make a decision about sending people overseas in an armed conflict,” and that’s a weight on my shoulders. But then I was stunned to learn, as I took my position in the Senate, that we don’t have any say, and I’m thinking of, we don’t even have a review of a decision like that. And I’m thinking of Alexander Downer, the Foreign Minister, when he retired from politics. He said on TV, he said that he can still remember John Howard coming back from 9/11 in America, marching into the Cabinet and saying, “We’re off to Iraq.” I mean, you don’t make decisions like that. These are serious decisions, and we shouldn’t enter conflict just chasing someone else, following someone else, rather, into conflict, and not having an end game in mind. I mean, this is so disrespectful to the people who have died in the past and who will die in the future. I mean, it’s just irresponsible.

Yeah. All right. By the way, I’ve got somebody who wants to take you on, Malcolm. We’ll get to that at the end of our conversation. I’ll play some of the audio back. His name is Mark and he’s a regular listener. He’s like me, a bit of a lefty. In fact, I think he’s way more left. But anyway, I’ll get to that in a moment. Now let’s go through a couple of issues here. I want to talk about rapid antigen testing, which you’re in support of, but the Queensland government, or up there in your neck of the woods, if you’re unvaccinated, forget it for 2022, effectively Anastasia Palaszczuk’s announcement just the other day, It mirrors similar to what they’re doing in Victoria, not here in New South Wales. The unvaxxed will be welcome in, I dunno, just under a month. But certainly, in Queensland, you always talk about a two-tiered society. It’s pretty obvious that’s where Anastasia Palaszczuk is headed.

That’s right. It’s all about control, Marcus. But there was a very serious development yesterday in Victoria, and this is where Queensland’s headed too. There was a raid on Dr Mark Hobart’s clinic, he’s a GP in Melbourne. And unidentified people just entered his clinic and wandered around. Can you imagine the arrogance of that? They then took files, patient files, which means that they broke the confidentiality, completely smashed the confidentiality between patient and doctor, which is a fundamental relationship that has been held sacrosanct for 3,000 years. So there’s no confidentiality or privacy of your records with a doctor now. People can just wander in. He then had the temerity, Dr Hobart, to ask for identification, and they reluctantly showed him identification. They did all this with no explanation of who they were, no identification–

Well, who was it?

It was somebody to do with an authorised officer from the Department of Health. Now I don’t know whether that’s State or Federal, because I watched Mark Hobart on, Mark is a wonderful person, very direct. He has got a very, very positive reputation amongst his patients in Melbourne. But they took what they wanted, no reason given. And they just marched out of the joint. And he said, “Hang on a minute.” And they said, “We’ll give you a list later.” So they walked out of the doctor’s surgery with confidential, private patient-doctor files. They took whatever they wanted, and they said, “We’ll give you a list later of what we’ve taken.” How does the doctor know that they’ve recorded things properly? How does he know they won’t deliberately leave things out? They also stole his appointment book. Just took it!

But why would they be targeting this man, this doctor?

I don’t know, but he’s been outspoken with his views on how we need to treat this COVID. So you’d have to ask about that.

So now we’re getting somewhere. So has he been on social media, or in the media, talking about what?

No, he’s been, I don’t think he’s had much work on social media at all, but he’s been known to give his views on a certain medication, Ivermectin, which is one of the World Health Organization’s

Well, that could be it.

hundred essential medicines. The developer was given the Nobel Prize in Medicine. I’ve used it. It’s phenomenal stuff. No side-effects. Mild side-effects on a very small proportion of people. Three point seven billion doses in over 60 years. And you know, this is rubbish.

I know that some doctors have come in for criticism for writing a number of what they call fake exemption certificates. He wasn’t providing exemptions for people, was he?

I don’t know. Maybe that’s got something to do, I don’t know, Marcus. But, you know, the thing is that a doctor-patient relationship… If someone goes to the doctor, you go to the doctor, your records are private and you don’t have people wandering in, no authorization, no identification, and just stealing stuff out of a doctor’s surgery. And then saying, “We’ll tell you what we’ve taken after we’ve had a look at it.”

All right.

This is wrong! This is happening in our country!

Well, I’ll follow up on that. I mean, we don’t, as you know, mate, have absconded and done the wrong thing, and putting the rest of the community at risk by not quarantining. You’re doing the right thing. Anyway, I understand the point. I understand the point. And look, it’s not the police’s fault, they’re acting on, obviously, the authority of the government. I don’t know.

I had another very interesting phone-call from a female as well, which turned into a Zoom conference. It was Parliament’s Respect and Safety Workshop on Safety and Respect in the Workplace, something like that, right. You know, because of what’s happened, and politics in this country, and certain parties, there’ve been abuses of people, even allegations of rape, in Parliament House, this kind of stuff.

Yeah, we know.

So I said, “Yeah, okay, I’ll sign up for training.” And I think all MPs are supposed to do it. And so I started the training. Lovely lady on the other end of the Zoom call. And she was just talking about the introduction of this training, and I said, “Look,” and it just came to me, I didn’t have it planned, it just came to me on the spot. I said, “Look, with due respect to you, you’re giving training,” and we’re about to embark on this training, “You’re giving this training on treating people with respect in the workplace, and the federal government is coercing people to get something in their bodies that they don’t want in there.” Marcus, I heard of a survey from a nurse the other day that said 40% of nurses have been injected reluctantly, under coercion, under threat of losing their job. These people are not happy about that. They’re very upset that this is happening, in this country. And I said to this lady, “Here we are, the federal government giving this training, which I think is good, but at the same time they’re injecting people against their will. That is a violation of the body, it’s just a complete violation.”

But it’s the health orders, Malcolm.

Exactly. This is rubbish, Marcus.

All right.

You can’t do that kind of stuff in this country.

Before we run out of time, you say although you have serious concerns about Australia’s Doherty Institute that’s been advising government on the virus, you note that it has recommended rapid antigen testing instead of quarantine for schoolkids. You say that this test-to-stay-at-school-approach to managing outbreaks is good and that it can improve the quality of life and learning for our children, and you would also like it to be part of our back-to-work protocol across the country.

Yes. I’m still open on the rapid antigen testing. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad. I’m not a medical expert. But it looks like an alternative that’ll enable people to not get an injection if they don’t want it, because there are serious consequences of this injection already appearing right across the world. And so it’s another alternative to give governments a way of saying, “Okay, we understand that this is serious, so we can test people.” Taiwan has had by far the most spectacular success in managing this virus, because it’s actually managed the virus, rather than the virus controlling us, which is what’s happening here. And they do testing at the workplace. And it’s a simple test. We did it in Parliament House last time I was down there. When you walk into your job, you get tested temperature, just hold up one of those infrared, or whatever it is, guns to your forehead. And someone else does it, and they say, “Okay, your temperature’s either cool, or it’s normal, away you go.” If you’re warm over here, you get COVID tested. That’s what’s happening in Taiwan. Taiwan has a similar population to us, 24 million, we’ve got 25. They’re crammed in a tiny island that’s half the size of Tasmania, so they’ve got much higher transmission opportunities for the virus to spread. They got the virus into their country from mainland China. They have a huge interaction with people crossing over those two countries. They got the virus earlier than we did. They get it more heavily, in terms of the risk there. And yet in the first 12 months, when we had over 900 deaths, and we had lockdowns, severe lockdowns, Taiwan had no lockdowns and had seven deaths. Not 700. Seven.

Seven, all right.

And, you know, this is what’s going on in this country. We’re just absurd. It’s complete… I was on a show last night on Facebook, and livestreamed from someone in Canberra managing it. Lovely bloke. Three cops on there. I have never been so impressed with these three people. These three people have all either left or are protesting the police force in their state, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland. These men were stunning individuals. Strong, well-spoken, quite clear in what they’re doing. And these people are protesting against what’s going on in the police forces. We’re turning into a police state, Marcus.

Before I let you go, have a listen to this. This is one of my regulars, Mark.

I wonder if you worked out that trees make oxygen and that they absorb carbon dioxide and put it back into the soil. Duh!

Are you telling me that you’ll, on this programme, will debate Malcolm Roberts?

Yep. On air.

On air? Beautiful. All right, Malcolm, Mark wants to take you on this time next week.

Oh, sure. Happy.

Happy to?

Yeah, I’d love to. But, Marcus, tell Mark that there is one decider of science. It’s well-known. And this is what the beauty of science is. It’s brought this to the world. It’s developed freedom. The scientific method has developed freedom.

Yep. Quickly.

He needs to be able to tell me where the specific location, the page number, the document title, the authors’ names, where the evidence is, that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate and needs to be cut.

Well I don’t think it’s just climate change–

He needs to be able to tell me where it’s quantified.

he wants to talk about. There’ll be other issues. But let’s do it. Let’s lock it in next Thursday.

Love to.

I’ve gotta go, mate, ’cause the news is approaching.

See you, mate. We’ll talk to you again next week for the great debate. Malcolm Roberts v Mark, don’t miss it. QSM Traffic.

Southern Cross drive inside the–

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Why is data about deaths being held back?

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Mortality data tells us information about deaths in Australia and is usually released every 6 weeks. For an unexplained reason, the latest data is over 15 weeks overdue. There’s no good reason for this, the government needs to be transparent and release the data now.

Transcript

Mr President as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I have a duty to ensure reasoned and accurate debate.

The Minister representing the Minister for Health, Senator Colbeck has that same duty, to ensure data central to reasoned and informed debate is made public.

For many years following the standardization of mortality reporting between the states mortality data has been made available 6 weeks after the period to which it relates.

The last mortality data covers the period to 30th June 2021. It is now October 18th. Suddenly and without explanation data is being held back for 15 weeks.

The Minister should have been prepared for this question, I did advise his office of the subject of my question today and also directed his office to my question on notice number 3970 asking for this same information.

QON 3970 has been outstanding for 12 weeks.

The data to June 30th shows deaths in Australia in 2021 are above the 7 year moving average and consistently above anything we have ever seen before in Australia.

It is troubling that NSW and Queensland no longer make this information public.

In the absence of Australian mortality data I will quickly reference official data from the UK, which has seen an increase in deaths amongst 15 – 17 year olds of 20% following the start of vaccination of that cohort, trending towards 25% at younger ages down to 4.

More worrying is that this distribution is not even, the mortality rate amongst boys was up 28%, and amongst girls 8%.

This may result from one of the 268 known adverse interactions between the COVID vaccines and other prescription drugs documented by the United States FDA on their website.

Logic would dictate that before giving a patient a COVID vaccine one would check to see what drugs they are already using, and what natural immunity they may have resulting from of a previous COVID infection.

I don’t think the 33 Bunnings Stores in Queensland that offered vaccinations to the general public last weekend asked for that information.

Natural antibodies were found by a very recent, gold standard paper by the University of Edinburgh to offer protection against COVID of 80%, substantially better than the vaccines are now providing.[1]

I am concerned this Parliament’s reckless vaccination crusade is killing people.

Let me pose some wider questions for the Minister to consider:

Is the well documented reduction in health and diagnostic services creating a time bomb in delayed treatment – early detection of cancer, for instance – and is that killing people?

Are widespread lockdowns creating mental health problems that result in increased loss of life?

Is locking up elderly Australians in Nursing Homes with no family contact causing elderly to let go early?

Are business owners who have seen their life work destroyed and bankrupted by capricious and counter-productive lockdowns losing their battle with life?

These are questions any prudent, caring government would be worried about. This Government and this Parliament should be watching mortality data closely, to get guidance on these matters in real time.

Sadly this Government and this Parliament is neither prudent nor caring.

Our community, our nation deserves better.

Release the data.

[1] https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-a-preprint-from-the-siren-study-looking-at-sars-cov-2-infection-rates-in-antibody-positive-healthcare-workers/

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COVID HEARING

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Today, I questioned Senate Select Committee on COVID-19 witnesses from Services Australia and the Digital Transformation Agency in regard to their development of a Digital Passport.  These passport are unnecessary and will divide Australians into two tiers, barring many everyday Australians out of the places and businesses, we have a right to enjoy. 

Australian businesses have already stated that they are hesitant to check the vaccine status of customers due to concerns about staffing capacity and privacy implications. 

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Peaceful assembly is our right

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It is a human right to engage in peaceful assembly and any government who threatens these rights restricts freedom for all of us.

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Healthcare workers don’t support mandatory vaccines

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Over 100 healthcare workers and supporters turned up at short notice to Underwood Park to show their opposition to mandatory vaccines. Within 2 weeks, many of these people will walk off the job because they refuse to be forcibly vaccinated under the threat of losing their livelihood. This was my speech at that meeting.

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Sending your mandatory vaccine concerns straight to the Prime Minister

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As soon as Aged Care workers were told they would be forced to take a vaccine of lose their livelihood my office was flooded. I’ve received thousands more phone calls and emails than the package I am sending here. The Prime Minister needs to step up and stop all vaccine mandates.

Transcript

I wanted to hand deliver this to the Prime Minister but COVID restrictions have stopped that.

These are personal letters from Aged Care workers who do not want to take a vaccine but will quit their job if they are forced.

We’ve received thousands more from aged care workers and Australians across all industries.

I’ll send this to the PM today.

It’s apparent Scott Morrison isn’t listening to Australians who have hesitations about a vaccine that does not have a full approval, only provisional. It’s time he started listening.

You have a right to take a vaccine, you have a right to refuse one. PM, have some guts, stop the vaccine mandates.

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Truckies and Protests – 2SM with Marcus Paul

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I attended the truckies blockade on the Gold Coast this week, protesting against mandatory vaccines in workers who want to cross the border. Them and many others are asking why you need to implement a vaccine passport for a vaccine if it’s so good?

Transcript

[Marcus Paul] One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts. Good morning to you, Malcolm.

[Malcolm Roberts] Good morning, Marcus, how are you doing?

[Marcus Paul] Yeah, not bad, mate. Whereabouts are you?

[Malcolm Roberts] I’m in Brisbane, Brisbane city.

[Marcus Paul] Ah, half your luck!

[Malcolm Roberts] Doing remote parliament from my electorate office.

[Marcus Paul] Yes, of course, remotely.

[Malcolm Roberts] It’s so frustrating.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah, I bet it is, I bet it’s frustrating, because of course, you can’t leave there because if you go to the ACT, what happens?

[Malcolm Roberts] I have to lock down. I have to quarantine for two weeks when I come back. But first, Marcus, I want to express my condolences for your recent loss of your dad.

[Marcus Paul] Oh, thank you, mate, thank you, it’s very-

[Malcolm Roberts] I know he was important to you.

[Marcus Paul] Absolutely, yeah.

[Malcolm Roberts] What do you appreciate most about him?

[Marcus Paul] Ooh, what do I appreciate most? Mate, have you got all day? Everything.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah, I have.

[Marcus Paul] I wish I did. Look, my father was a compassionate man. He was very, very kind to everybody. I can’t recall a time where he had a bad word really to say about- And he went through some difficult times in his life, but he was always optimistic. But more importantly I think, Dad taught me to respect people and that’s hopefully what I do. I mean, obviously, you know, I do a radio show, so quite often I go off the rails with some of my criticism, but I never try to make it personal. So look, that’s the main thing. My dad was a truly decent man and I hope that I’m also, you know, as decent as he is. There we go.

[Malcolm Roberts] That’s a wonderful compliment and what do they say? “The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree”?

[Marcus Paul] Hope not. That’s it, mate, that’s it. All right, what are we discussing this morning with you? Vaccine passports. Here in New South Wales, the Premier yesterday basically said that, look, if you are fully vaccinated, you can return to a normal life as of October 17, 18. So she’s well and truly dangling that vaccine passport carrot.

[Malcolm Roberts] You know, Marcus, that really undermines people’s faith in the vaccine, because if you have to be coerced into getting a vaccine, because you might miss out on going to the supermarket, you can’t eat, you lose your livelihood, you lose basic services that you’ve paid for in your form of taxation, then it really raises people’s questions about this vaccine and so they should. Because I’ve checked with the Chief Medical Officer in Federal Parliament, and they won’t say that the vaccine’s 100% safe. They admit that they don’t know the dosage, they don’t know the frequency of injections, they admit that it won’t stop people getting the virus, they admit that it won’t stop the spread of virus, and the efficacy is plummeting. It’s down around 17% of what it should be, so why would you get one of these things? Plus, this is the first time in history that our government has injected something into healthy people that can possibly kill them and we know there are deaths. So I mean, it just doesn’t make sense. And the governments themselves are undermining any faith in the vaccines by the actions they are doing to try and force people to get it. And that’s what the truckies were on about. You know, I appreciated your call on Monday.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah.

[Malcolm Roberts] We were just leaving the truckies’ blockade in Southern Queensland and the truckies just have very simple needs. They just wanted three things. They want a choice on vaccine, whether or not you get it, that’s your choice.

[Marcus Paul] Sure.

[Malcolm Roberts] They wanted to end these capricious lockdowns, which are destroying their livelihoods. These truckies have got to pay off trucks you know. They don’t just get JobKeeper. And then the third thing they want is their kids back at school. I mean, this is just disgraceful what’s going on.

[Marcus Paul] All right, well, look, everybody has a right to free speech and to protest in this country. And look, I’m glad though, that once, obviously, the point was made, I’m glad that you and Pauline moved them on, the way you did and cleared the roadway for other drivers. Because obviously the point had been made, there was some traffic delays, but I’m not a truck driver. I’ve been very lucky. That’s why I try and have a bit of an open mind here. I’ve been extremely lucky. I’ve been able to work and earn, obviously, an income throughout this whole pandemic. So it’s a little unfair on me to jump up and down about people concerned about their rights, and their right to earn an income, et cetera. I’d be a hypocrite to be perfectly honest. I don’t agree with some of the silly protests that have gone on, but I kind of understand it.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well you know, these truckies- just first two points. Firstly, Pauline and I didn’t move them on.

[Marcus Paul] Oh okay.

[Malcolm Roberts] Pauline, she’s a very, very strong supporters of the truckies. Come back to that in a minute. But what Pauline said to the truckies was there are horses stuck in traffic and this was kilometres long, you know.

[Marcus Paul] Yes.

[Malcolm Roberts] You’re not just going to move it by moving aside a truck, you’ve got to end the blockade. So Pauline just said, we know that you’ve made your point. You’ve shown that trucks are essential. You’ve made your point. You’ve got the media in terms of not being forced to get these jabs, injections. There are horses stuck in this traffic. So it’s up to you. You know, she didn’t say-

[Marcus Paul] Yeah.

[Malcolm Roberts] She has got no power to move anyone on, but she just interceded like that. And the truckies being highly responsible just said, yeah, okay, we’ve made our point. And then they opened up.

[Marcus Paul] All right.

[Malcolm Roberts] The other thing is that truckies- a very good friend of mine reminded me of something. Trucks touch every single thing in our lives.

[Marcus Paul] Oh, of course.

[Malcolm Roberts] You know, they transport food to processing. They transport the processed food, the manufactured goods and mate, truckies are so down to earth, they’re responsible for what they’re doing. They’re responsible for other people’s lives. They’ve also, generally, many of them are small business owners. So they have that responsibility as well. Some of them employ people. But truckies are down to earth and they were asking basic questions about freedoms, basic questions. Do they have the right to determine what comes into their body? You know, I’ll make a statement. Parliaments are meant serve Australians and not control Australians. We’ve lost the fact that Parliament serve Australians. Parliaments look after the two major parties. And that’s it. I would far rather have truckies in parliament.

[Marcus Paul] All right.

[Malcolm Roberts] Because they are salt of the earth people. They can represent the people. These guys are salt of the earth and I highly respect them.

[Marcus Paul] The Queensland Premier is copping it again in the press and understandably so. I mean, I have my personal story on this and I won’t, you know, I’ve already said what I have to say.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah, I heard that.

[Marcus Paul] But, little Memphis. There’s a little boy, who’s aged three. He’s stuck in New South Wales at his grandparents’ home near Griffith. Due to the border blockade of the Premier of Queensland, Anastasia Palaszczuk, this little three year old has not seen his mum and dad, going on now more than two months. The Queensland Government has refused a reunion exemption. Look, if that’s not compassionate grounds to reunite a three-year-old child with his parents, then I don’t know what the hell is.

[Malcolm Roberts] Marcus, you are absolutely correct. It’s not the Premier. She’s a dope, it’s the Labour state machine. What they have done is instilled fear up here and abused powers. And they’ve done it to keep control of people and done it for their own electoral benefit. And they rely on emotion. There are many, many stories like little Memphis.

[Marcus Paul] Of course.

[Malcolm Roberts] But listen to some of these figures. In Victoria- these are just some of the figures, I’ll go through NSW as well. Every week, more than 340 teenagers suffering mental health emergencies admitted to hospitals in Victoria – 162% increase. Every week, 156 teenagers rushed to hospital for attempting suicide or self-harm. 37 every week needing emergency treatment or surgery. An 88 percent increase – almost doubled. A 90% increase in children with eating disorders.

[Marcus Paul] Okay.

[Malcolm Roberts] New South Wales, daily, more than 40 children and teenagers rushed to hospital for self-harm. That’s up 31%. Acute mental health admissions for children and young people, up almost half, almost 50%. Gold Coast Hospital here in Queensland, a 212% spike in eating disorders from 2019 compared to 2020.

[Marcus Paul] All right.

[Malcolm Roberts] And Queensland’s Butterfly Foundation says, calls for help increased 34% for eating disorders from January 2020 to January 2021. 85% were first time callers to the helpline. In August, the Lifeline Suicide Prevention Line had his busiest days in its 50 year history.

[Marcus Paul] Yeah, we spoke to John Brogden about that.

[Malcolm Roberts] This is disgraceful. Because Marcus, kids are going through the formative period of their mind. Their mind is actually forming and they need the love and nurturing around. Now we’ve got the Premier in Victoria saying they can’t go to their grandparents and get the kiss and a hug. I mean, this is insane. These kids are vulnerable and underdeveloped. Their brains are vulnerable and underdeveloped, and it’s inhuman to expect children to process and cope with the restrictions that adults impose.

[Marcus Paul] All right.

[Malcolm Roberts] Even many adults themselves are now appearing to be on the edge of insanity. And we’re depriving kids of the greatest deprivations, deprivation of liberty, deprivation of education, deprivation of normal development, deprivation of swings, slippery slides and rides on the bike, swims at the beach and local sport, deprivation of crucial friendship support and separated parents, depravation of loving grandparents.

[Marcus Paul] The answer to all of this, is they damn well should have been Olympians or NRL players. Malcolm, I’ve got to go.

[Malcolm Roberts] Good on you mate.

[Marcus Paul] Bye mate. See you later. Malcolm Roberts. There he is. Always passionate, isn’t he?

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Workplace mandatory vaccination letter

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If your employer has made a direction that you must be vaccinated to work, this template letter may help extract important information.

Download the below word document, delete the first page and insert the details of your employer and your details in the highlighted section.

This letter is not legal advice, it does not guarantee you protection from having to receive a vaccination for your work. Further details are provided in the document below.

Template-Letter-for-Employees-to-EmployersDownload

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THIS IS NOT A PARLIAMENT: IT’S A CRIME SCENE

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Sports rorts, carpark scandals, corrupt water trading, crooked disaster funding projects, AusPost CEOs being forced out for not pleasing government party hacks. This government disrespects the people of Australia so they can look after their corporate mates.

Transcript

Earlier this month in my flag speech I spoke of parliament’s duty to serve the people. Today I’m asking: who does this parliament really serve? I’ll review the Morrison government’s actions and this parliament’s actions that carry the stench of cronyism and corruption.

I’ll start with changes to water policy that Malcolm Turnbull and John Howard introduced in 2007. Those changes turned ownership and the trading of water rights into a $20 billion industry. Large corporate interests, trade union bosses controlling industry super funds and National Party powerbrokers have rushed to take advantage of this new wealth. And by taking advantage, I really mean make out like bandits at the expense of family farms that can no longer afford water for their crops. I’m raising this issue first up because it illustrates how things are done in federal parliament.

The Water Act requires a transparent water-trading register. The government tried to introduce one in 2012, stuffed it up and then gave up. I thought asking the government to take another run at it—to reveal who was lining their pockets with the proceeds of water speculation—would be straightforward. How naive was that! My amendment was opposed. The same parties, the Liberals and Nationals, that passed the legislation in the first place requiring a water-trading register, opposed my amendment that sought to ensure compliance with the parliament’s legislation. The Senate, with Labor’s support, passed my amendment. It proceeded to the lower house, where Labor rejected it. What happened in the 100 metres between the Senate and the House of Representatives? The fix happened—the fix to protect corporate water traders. Labor agreed to cover for its Liberal and Nationals mates and they returned the favour. That’s how this parliament works. Cronyism is an art form.

The same pattern of immoral behaviour occurred with the legislation One Nation introduced to stop banks bailing-in depositors’ funds to save banks in a crisis, stealing customers’ hard earned deposits. In 2018, parliament passed legislation to allow a bail-in as part of emergency financial measures. The Labor, Liberal, and National parties teamed up to oppose my bill and justified that action with a complete lie: that the emergency provisions did not give APRA the power to order a bail-in. My legislation to protect the one trillion dollars in bank deposits of everyday Australians was defeated, despite the Treasury admitting, in a briefing to my face, that those emergency provisions do allow a bail-in. The Liberal-National and Labor duopoly lied so their donors in the major banks can keep the right to steal your money to save themselves.

The same cronyism was in place over the Christine Holgate watch scandal at Australia Post. As we now know, those watches were given to management as a reward for completing a very profitable deal for Australia Post. Australia Post executives accepted the watches and agreed to forgo much larger bonuses. Why would the Prime Minister and the parliament misrepresent a measure that saved Australia Post money? It’s because Christine Holgate had negotiated a fee with the banks of $20 million a year for the provision of banking services through licensed post offices, but the banks wanted a bigger share of those profits. Christine Holgate made the mistake of costing the big four banks money, and an example had to be made of her. What a show Scott Morrison put on! After Ms Holgate was sacked, and Australia Post was placed back into the hands of friendlies, the deal was renegotiated. The banks are now only paying half that, $10 million per year, and 4,000 licensed post office franchisees got screwed. How much did it cost the banks to get the outcome they wanted from this parliament?

In the last election cycle Australian banks donated $500,000 to the Liberal and National parties and $400,000 to the Labor Party.

There’s more. The Australian people can see that cronyism extends to pharmaceuticals. Most people don’t know who funds the body that approves pharmaceuticals in Australia—the Therapeutic Goods Administration, known as the TGA. The big pharmaceutical companies applying for approvals themselves fund the TGA. The expert committees that advise the TGA on what to approve are comprised largely of university academics, whose departments receive funding from pharmaceutical companies. That doesn’t pass the pub test, nor does this. In the last election cycle the pharmaceutical industry donated $276,000 to Labor and $400,000 to the Liberals and Nationals.

Earlier this year One Nation combined with the Greens to extend the licences of community TV stations C31 in Melbourne and Channel 44 in Adelaide, after Malcolm Turnbull in 2012 confiscated those free-to-air transmission rights to force viewers back to commercial TV owned by his mates. C31 and Channel 44 survived on the back of large public campaigns. Why was it so hard to get an extension for community TV to use a spectrum that’s not needed until 2024? Could it be because the commercial stations, through Free TV Australia, donated $17,000 to Labor and $13,000 to the Liberals? That, of course, is the problem.

Yesterday in the Senate the Liberals-Nationals and Labor duopoly teamed up to stop the measures that One Nation and Senator Rex Patrick jointly proposed to make Woodside Petroleum pay for the $2 billion cost of cleaning up their environmental damage in the Timor Sea. Woodside easily evaded its responsibilities to the people of Australia. It simply sold the little bit of extraction left in the gas field, including its clean-up liability, to a small company for a few million dollars. That company was then wound up. Taxpayers are now on the hook for the clean-up. One Nation’s amendment would have restored the liability on Woodside. The crossbench supported that. Labor and the Liberals and Nationals opposed it. Then I discovered that Woodside donated $135,000 to Labor and $148,000 to the Liberals and Nationals. What a surprise!

Then there’s the Beetaloo basin. It’s in the news this week because the government passed legislation to allow cash payments to its mining mates to frack the Beetaloo basin. Guess who funds the cost of the exploration—some $7 million per well? Taxpayers via a grant, yet the gas extraction company owns the well and keeps the profits from the extraction. This little earner is called socialising the risk and the costs while privatising the profits. The first recipient of this cronyism was Empire Energy, a Liberal Party donor. But you didn’t hear this from the opposition, because Empire Energy donated $25,000 to the Labor Party. In echoing Senator Hanson’s repeated calls, Senator Patrick rightly pointed out that the oil and gas industry exported $62 billion in 2018-19 and paid taxpayers just $1 billion in royalties. The taxpayers are getting royally screwed by this crony capitalist approach to government.

One Nation support free enterprise; we do not support cronyism. Earlier this year One Nation introduced a motion to refer to a Senate inquiry the misuse of federal government disaster relief funds. Millions, possibly billions, of dollars are being misappropriated, with no suitable work being conducted. The Liberals-Nationals and Labor duopoly rode to the rescue of their mates and voted down our motion—no inquiry.

The car park scandal has seen the Morrison government give $420 million of taxpayer money for commuter car parks in areas that don’t need commuter car parks, including three in the Treasurer’s electorate and one for a train station that’s closing. I assume that even this government is not stupid enough to build a car park at a train station that is not there anymore, so I wait to see which of the government’s mates just got free car parks. The sports rorts scandal, the Inland Rail infrastructure grants, the Kimba radioactive waste dump, the Murray-Darling Basin’s upwater program and ‘watergate’ are all corruption scandals that a federal corruption commission, if we had one, would have dealt with. Parliament rubberstamps decisions and policies, costing the people trillions of dollars so mates can feed off taxpayers, bludge off taxpayers and transfer wealth from taxpayers. The people are rightly angry.

Decisions taken in the parliament must not only be honest, they must be seen to be honest and be justified with hard, solid data.

Australian voters will shortly be asked to pass judgement on this sorry parliament. Make no mistake, voting for the Liberal Party with their sellout sidekicks, the Nationals, or voting for Labor and their ticket to power, the Greens, will represent business as usual for the Liberal-Labor duopoly that has ruled this parliament for decades. It’s now time, at the next election, to break this cycle of abuse. Stop repeatedly alternating Liberal-Nationals with Labor and expecting anything to change. It’s now time to change the parliament.

There are many third parties putting their hands up in this election, and none have a track record of achievement greater than One Nation. I’m very proud of the contribution Senator Hanson, Mark Latham, Steve Andrew, Rob Roberts and I have made and are making to restore governance to Australia. Despite the Liberal, Labor and Nationals parties’ many dishonest attempts to destroy her, for 25 years Senator Pauline Hanson and One Nation have remained true to the Australian people, and we will continue to be so. In conclusion, I make an observation regarding the perspex security screen that now protects the Leader of the Government in the Senate from the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and vice versa. This screen sends a powerful message to the Australian people: the Senate chamber now resembles a visitation centre at one of Her Majesty’s prisons. How very appropriate! This is not a parliament; it’s a crime scene.

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Government declares war on peaceful protests

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Earlier in the pandemic, State Premiers let Black Lives Matter protests happen without a whisper of criticism. Now that protests criticise their attempts at tyranny, they crack down on them. Banning protests has been a hallmark of dictators for all of history. Let’s not follow them down that path.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, my remarks will be on the most basic of human rights: freedom to protest. State premiers have declared a war on peaceful protests against their policies, including the ‘freedom day’ rallies, yet they allow protests they agree with such as Black Lives Matter.

An ethical nightmare over human rights is brewing between the parliaments and the people. It’s the fault of blind political ambition, leveraged off a virus that has turned out to be, according to government health experts’ own data, no more harmful than a bad flu. It’s time we cancelled the COVID apocalypse. It’s time to end the use of COVID as an excuse to implement all-powerful legislation that exempts itself from proper scrutiny. Both the Biosecurity Act 2015 and the National Emergency Declaration Act 2020 make a mockery of 120 years of legislation and 800 years of common law. Both pieces of legislation are being used in ways never put to the people. Together, these acts trespass unreasonably on the rights and liberties of everyday Australians.

No parliament that wishes to call itself a democracy can grant indefinite, absolute and unscrutinised power. State premiers have entered into a COVID arms race with each other, leaving Australians trapped in the middle of the crossfire—huge increases in suicide attempts, children phoning helplines in unprecedented numbers and small businesses in ruins. And what created this? Federal parliament’s failure to hold the line against fear and misuse of power.

‘Emergency’ should not mean a dissolution of rights, especially when a state of emergency can be stretched out for months, years or even indefinitely. COVID policy has turned into a parallel legal system, embraced by a Prime Minister that has encouraged health orders that permanently alter the landscape of work and travel. Death has become a matter of politics and mismanagement, used to prevent the sacred freedom to assemble and protest peacefully. If Australians cannot protest, parliaments will never be held accountable for errors in judgement.

One of parliament’s many mistakes is in the presentation of COVID data. Given without context, they tower over us. Viewed in context, COVID harm barely deviates from normal. Parliaments cannot promise safety. Safety is an outcome of parliaments following policies that protect our freedoms and our rights. Instead of handling COVID with a view to these important guiding principles, politicians have suffocated Australia under the weight of biosecurity powers, resulting in displays of cruelty that have shocked the whole world.

The fact is we are not safe. We are not safe from our own parliaments. Freedom protests are a criticism of COVID policies and parliaments’ atrocious governance. Like the manufacturers of vaccines, parliaments do not want to hear any complaints about the quality of their work. Despite this parliament’s best attempts to control people, we are blessed with a nation full of people who refuse to live under the coercion of fear. This may be considered civil disobedience—I call it commonsense.

The Prime Minister’s role is to perform his duty with pragmatism and calm. Instead, Scott Morrison has rattled the cage of fear and enticed state politicians to do the same. Instead of focusing on trust, this parliament endorses spending tens of millions of dollars advertising COVID fear. Operation COVID Shield is now an attempt to use military to force the behaviour associated with trust without any attempt to create the meeting of the minds necessary for trust. Abused people may well may obey their captors, but they do not trust them. The more rights parliaments steal from Australians, the less likely people are to trust.

Australians asked for choice in COVID treatments, and the government suppressed peer reviewed and internationally accepted alternatives like Ivermectin. Australians asked for vaccine manufacturers to accept liability for their products, and instead were denied any recourse in the event of personal harm. Australians tried to report fatal side effects, and for months the parliament, the legacy media and social media silenced them. Australians took to the streets to tell this parliament and state premiers that the health orders were destroying millions of lives, and the states hunted them down like criminals. To enforce compliance, parliaments will need more policies like Operation COVID Shield, more police and more Defence Force members in our streets. Force will still fail, because fear and intimidation are a terrible plan. The damage done to the sacred trust between the people and parliaments is catastrophic. Parliamentary policy has destroyed trust in vaccines, creating two classes of people in Australia—those who profit from the pandemic and those who suffer from it. Policy, not COVID, has destroyed trust in vaccines. COVID Shield seeks to repair it with the rhetoric of war. Everyday Australians are not buying this nonsense. Australians know what the parliaments, the military and the health bureaucrats do not know—we will not be divided, we have one flag, we are one community and we are One Nation.

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