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Is the Government considering mandatory vaccination? Questioning the Department of Health Senate Estimates

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Even though the government says they don’t want to mandate vaccination, they haven’t ruled out attaching it to everyday activities. That means they won’t rule out that you might have to be vaccinated to go to the pub which sounds as good as mandating it to me.

I believe in the vaccine being available to anyone who wants to take it, but it should be every individual’s choice whether they take it or not. I do not believe they should be government mandated. Where do you stand?

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you chair. And thank you all for attending. What percentage of the population, that will, will receive a COVID 19 vaccine? Do you expect or plan?

[Brendan Murphy]

Well, we were, our target at present Senator, is to vaccinate all the adult population, the over eighteens off by the end of October, give them a first dose. So that’s I think approximately 20 million, I think?

About, about 20 million going on.

Yeah. Now we may then go on and vaccinate children. If we have vaccines that are registered and approved for children. And if they prevent transmission and that helps us with herd immunity, but there are no vaccine. There’s no trial data on children at the moment. So the vaccines are only registered for adults.

Or 16 to 18 in the case of one. But no nobody under 16 has a registered product at this point.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Will that include the elderly, the frail?

[Brendan Murphy]

Absolutely. Unless there is a medical contraindication which is very rare. So if someone is very close to end of life it may be decided that it’s not appropriate. But in general, absolutely. That’s what we’re doing in residential aged care. Vaccinating a lot of very elderly and very frail people.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you. Do you have the constitutional or legislative power in your opinion, to impose mandatory vaccination?

[Brendan Murphy]

The government policy is very clear that we’re not. We’ve never imposed mandatory vaccination in Australia. We take the approach that we want to encourage, promote and provide the evidence for vaccination. There have been situations where, for example, with flu vaccination last year in aged care where there was a public health order that the States and territories made. That decided that you couldn’t enter a facility unless you had proof of flu vaccination. But that was that’s very different from, from making, from mandating a vaccine. It just means that you have to make a choice about whether you go into an aged care facility. And obviously for childhood immunisation similar rules have applied. With again, mostly enforced by the States and territories, with no jab no play and government policy with no jab, no pay. But none of those have said that you are by law required to be vaccinated.

[Malcolm Roberts]

In the States?

[Brendan Murphy]

Yeah, In the States. Nobody can force a medical intervention on another citizen. We can do a lot of things to encourage, promote. And in some cases to restrict situations of risk if you’re not vaccinated. But we have never taken the view that we can force a citizen to have a medical intervention.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And you won’t be taking that view.

[Brendan Murphy]

I, I can’t imagine. That’s not, we wouldn’t recommend it.

[Witness]

There is absolutely no proposal from the government to make any COVID vaccine compulsory for anybody.

[Malcolm Roberts]

So are there any policies or plans or ideas or has it been discussed to make something unavailable without the vaccine? Effectively making it compulsory?

[Brendan Murphy]

Well, again, there has been discussion at HBPC. About whether, and Professor Kelly can comment on that, whether, at some stage we might use the same approach that we used for flu last year. To say that if the COVID vaccine is really effective at preventing transmission, that to say that to work in aged care or to enter a facility you need to have a vaccination. But HBPC has decided that; A, there isn’t enough evidence on prevention of transmission at the moment. And, B it would be silly for such a public health order to be introduced until such time as all of those workers and community members who might visit aged care have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. So that is, that’s a live matter for consideration that will be reviewed as the evidence evolves.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Okay.

[Witness]

No, I’ll just be very clear here though, that the current position of the government is that this vaccine is voluntary and not withstanding that the HPCs work and the, and the health departments work. But the government’s position is very clear, that the vaccine is voluntary.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Murphy. I’ll just jump outside of vaccines for a minute. To understand the overall context, and then come back to vaccines. What are the main factors in managing a pandemic? I’ll just test my own knowledge with you first. Is isolate and arrest the vaccine, which is called a lockdown, I understand. Then there’s number two is, identify the location and the spread to get on top of the quickly. What’s that? testing, tracing and quarantine. Then there are attempts to reduce the transmissibility through restrictions like masks, gatherings, criticism, movement of people, sorry, not criticism, movement of people. Then the fourth one would be cure and prophylactic areas to try and prevent, to try and cure people of the virus. For example, antivirals. Number five would be vaccine. Have I, have any, have I included any that are wrong? Have I missed any?

[Brendan Murphy]

Well you’ve missed international borders, which is probably…

[Malcolm Roberts]

Isolate and arrest.

[Brendan Murphy]

Yeah, well, certainly that has been one of our most successful interventions. Was to prevent the importation of a virus from, despite all the impact that it’s had on our citizens overseas. It has been one of the most singularly important parts of our success in controlling COVID.

[Malcolm Roberts]

So there’s just isolate and arrest, which I include international borders. Identify the location and spread through testing, tracing, quarantine. Reduce the transmissibility through restrictions. Cure and prophylactic approach and vaccine.

[Malcolm Roberts]

That seems pretty complete Professor Kelly?

[Professor Kelly]

individual behaviours.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Sorry?

[Professor Kelly]

Individual behaviours. So the hand hygiene, cough into your elbow, that sort of stuff.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Okay. Thank you.

The following line of questioning occured after the end of the attached video clip (see HANSARD)

[Chair]

The last question.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Sure. Can I get, on notice, an assessment of the characteristics of the virus? We were told initially it was a respiratory disease and we shoved ventilators at people. Some people were telling us that it hinders the blood absorbing oxygen or uptaking oxygen. We were told about various treatments. Perhaps you could tell me, on notice, what are the characteristics you measure to assess the virus’s mortality and
transmissibility, and any other characteristics of the virus, and perhaps rank it relative to, for example, the decreasing order of impact. We’ve had the Black Death, the Plague of Justinian, smallpox, the Antonine Plague, the Spanish flu, the third plague, HIV/AIDS and now COVID-19, which is a fraction of the population affected. Is it possible to get that summary?

[Brendan Murphy]

We can certainly provide it. This virus is now well studied. Essentially, as we’ve said on many occasions, for most fit, young people it’s a relatively mild disease, but 126,000 people have died in the UK, a very similar country to us. We have avoided a very large death rate by controlling this virus, and we’re very proud of that achievement, Senator. Whilst it may be a mild disease, that means it transmits wildly. Older people and people with underlying conditions are at risk of getting severe respiratory disease and dying, as they have done in their millions around the world.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

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Support for JobMaker scheme

On Tuesday we supported 2 of 11 amendments to the JobMaker scheme but on receiving new information on Wednesday afternoon we changed our position. We listen and when we get new data we have the courage and integrity to review our position.

There was concern that employers would put off older workers and only employ younger workers to receive the JobMaker scheme.We now know this is not the case. The legislation only offers JobMaker for businesses who increase their payroll & head count. Sacking an elderly employee & hiring an under 35 wouldn’t qualify for a subsidy.

The Treasurer advised Pauline that unemployment in people 35 years of age or younger is 10.4%. In people older than 35 is 4%.There is a crisis for those in our community under 35. A job can make all the difference. When Covid restrictions came in unemployment increased 100%. And unemployment among younger people increased 150%.

Transcript

Hi, we just had a bit of a kerfuffle in the Senate about the job makers scheme. It’s to subsidise hiring of two groups of people. Those from 16 to 29 years of age, and those from 30 to 35 years of age. Yesterday, I spoke strongly opposed to it. And we then supported two amendments, two of 11 amendments. We rejected nine of Labor greens amendments, rejected nine, we supported two.

One was on reporting and the other one was on duplication. Here’s some new data. And when we get new data, we look at it, because we use these things, this thing, and our heart, and we assess the data honestly, and we don’t care what people think just because we changed our mind. We have the courage and the integrity to change our mind.

So here’s some of the data we got from the treasurer through Pauline today, she went in to see the treasurer, and we were told that the unemployment rate for those under 35 years of age is 10.4%. The unemployment rate for those over 35 years of age is just 4%. So that means the young have been really hammered. We’ve got to get those people back to work.

Another set of figures, the increase in unemployment, across all of Australia, due to the COVID restrictions, was 100%. The increase in unemployment due to the COVID restrictions on people under 35 years of age was 150%. So it’s really savaged the young. And we have to help these people back to work. Now, the treasurer gave us this data, and as I said, that caused us to rethink.

He also reassured us about the two amendments that we had previously supported. One was about reporting, and he assured us that the ATO will do that. And we also were reassured that the data will be reported to the COVID inquiry, the COVID committee. The second amendment was about duplication. We’ve been reassured on that too. The treasurer gave us the facts.

We have the courage and the integrity to change our position. Sadly, the Labor party and the greens are pitting old versus young. We know that that’s crap. That’s complete rubbish, because Australians care. And Australians who see those figures will do exactly what we’ve done. They’ll try and help the young and everyone. We know that all Australians care and will want this fixed.

And this programme is necessary to get the young back to work quickly. There are other programmes for other groups, and they’re at work already and have been at work in some cases for months. So that’s why we changed our position, because we’re honest and straight. No deal done, simply facts. Labor and the greens can’t understand that, because everything they do has to be grubby.

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Where is your COVID19 plan Prime Minister?

Yesterday I spoke in the Senate about the lack of a plan to live with and master COVID19 rather than hiding behind advice from bureaucrats in the health departments. There is no guarantee when or if there will be a vaccine. Where is your plan Prime Minister?

Transcript

I know that there are many grieving families, fearful families and concerned families. I raised the fact that in my correspondence to both the prime minister and to the premier of Queensland.

I expressed concern over their use of insufficient and flawed modelling to lock us all away and cause untold damage to our economy, businesses and jobs. Their responses to my letters avoided addressing the real issues.

Yes. If the federal government and state governments had learned, as I suggested in March from nations like Taiwan and promptly adopted rigorous testing combined with strict isolation of their sick, aged and vulnerable then many Australians could have stayed at work with minimal economic disruption and better health.

The difference is that Taiwan had a plan and relied on solid data. And as a result, Taiwan had seven deaths in the time we’ve had 517. They have a similar population to ours in terms of total population. Yet they are under greater threat because of the highly densely populated country and they’re closer to China.

The honourable John Houston in the Sydney Morning Herald, recently referred to quote, “planning or the lack of it has been the great failure of the Morrison government. It has been building over years of neglect and poor policy, but now it has been laid bare by both COVID-19 and the Royal commission.”

Queensland’s own chief health officer, Dr. Jeanette young, has stated this past week that she is only looking at the health issues. Mr. Acting deputy president. And this is very concerning. Who is looking after the big picture for us all? What about mental health, economic health, jobs, families, businesses?

The Queensland Premier referred us to the website location of her data. We checked there’s no relevant data, weak premier, irresponsibly abdicating, again, hiding behind the chief health officer, abdicating her duties. The Morrison government and the Queensland government need to both step up and to demonstrate leadership and to tell the truth.

They need to show us the data and the plan across all aspects of managing our way out of this pandemic and the resulting recession, and in the process, ensuring security for all Australians.

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Australia must master COVID-19

State and federal politicians need an urgent plan for Australia to master COVID-19, rather than being held captive in fear of the next wave of infections.

Senator Roberts said, “The ad-hoc opening and closing of our economy and politicians praying for an elusive and unlikely vaccine needs to transition to a longer-term plan of how to master COVID-19.”

The rolling debate of suppression versus elimination strategies are short-term and unsustainable and we cannot continue as we are.  At current infection rates it could take until 2040 for Australia to achieve herd immunity.

Taiwan, with a population similar to Australia, has had just seven deaths despite great exposure to COVID-19, yet unlike Australia it did not destroy its economy.

“There is a deafening absence of political leadership that has the courage to look beyond the immediate waves of COVID-19 infections to the horizon of how to live with COVID-19 in our community,” stated Senator Roberts.

Queensland’s state 2019-2020 mid-year Fiscal and Economic Review, pre COVID-19, states “An increased capital program of $51.8 billion over the forward estimates, supporting 41,500 jobs in 2010-20”.

Part of Queensland’s Economy Recovery Strategy Stage 2 for COVID-19 also states “$51.8 billion state infrastructure program over the next four years to give the building and construction industry certainty and confidence.”

“This is duplicitous and untrustworthy leadership that pretends this is new money for recovery, when it is in fact an existing capital works program re-branded as a recovery capital works program.

Senator Roberts said, “Clearly the Queensland government’s exceedingly poor financial management has left Queensland on the back foot with no additional resources to bolster economic recovery.”

“With no vaccine in sight, no money in the bank and no confidence in the Premier’s leadership to look beyond the advice of the Chief Medical Officer, then Queenslanders need to get back to work.”

“The Premier needs an urgent plan, based on data, on how we master COVID-19 so we can return the economy and our community back to prosperity.”

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Trust in Politicians at rock bottom | BNAP Today

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This week I appeared on BUSINESS NOW ASIA PACIFIC to discuss the different approaches to COVID19 and how Australia needs to change course.

Transcript

[Mike

Senator Malcolm Roberts from Pauline Hanson’s One nation believes the lockdown in Victoria will succeed. However testing needs to be quicker. He also believes that government needs to be more truthful. Now, Victoria has serious problems with infection control will a harder breakdown be effective if they don’t know the source of so many infections.

[Malcolm]

Well, I think there are two things I need to say in response to that Mike. And that is that first of all, this is a very difficult issue. We said that right from the start on the single day sittings on 23rd of March and eighth of April, when we said, there’s no manual for this, it’s entirely new.

We’ve gotta give the government lots of room. We voted in favour that we supported them on their packages and away we went, but we said, you’ve got to get the data. And you’ve got to look elsewhere and start to manage this in accordance with the best practise around the world.

So we might come back to that more later, but what we’ve learned is that quite often, the places where people have prolonged contact in close quarters is where the virus is transmission is highest and that’s the family unit and workplaces. So the family unit in Melbourne is older than in any other city.

And that’s significant because I also saw these figures on one of the radio stations. I heard the figures rather than one of the radio stations. The other thing about Melbourne is that it’s flat and people travel very easily and they travelled to watch football matches, sporting events, games, social venues, et cetera.

So I think that it is difficult. And number one priority is life, securing life, making sure people are healthy and secure and safe. And so a lockdown is essential because they’ve lost control of their borders. They’ve let it go and sorry, lost control of the virus within, in I think multi, foreign, where people are speaking foreign languages.

So they’ve lost control of that because people have not been able to understand the messages about the virus. So that’s where the outbreaks have been. And so I think the lockdown will be effective because it’ll stop families The extended family visits and it’ll stop work obviously.

And so I think the lock downs will be successful in Melbourne. The other thing is that they need to get testing done more quickly because some people are basically having a test and not getting the result back for about 10 days. Now they’re not gonna stay cooped up for 10 days if they don’t believe they’re sick.

And many of these cases that they’re asymptomatic. So I think that while it will work, the government has got to do its bit and getting testing to be more responsive and get results back in two or three days rather than 10. So yeah, there’s potential.

[Mike]

It’s interesting. In South Korea, the testing, from the testing to getting the results back now 12 hours and that’s what it should be when I was talking to professor Justin Fendos in South Korea last week, and he was saying that 12 hours and I mentioned that we have at times up to 10 days and I could hear his jaw hit the table. That’s just atrocious. What should the authorities be doing though?

[Malcolm]

Well, let’s come back to Taiwan if you don’t mind, because South Korea has done a marvellous job. They actually, do you mind if we talk about that?

[Mike]

Yeah, for sure.

[Malcolm]

Okay, South Korea has done a marvellous job. They actually let go let it go. And they had to recover. So given that, and by the way, I’ve watched your interview with professor Fendos. Fabulous interview, very well spoken man knows his facts. And he has been on the same track we’ve been from the right from the start on Monday, March 23rd and April the eighth, in the Senate single day hearings.

We also said, make sure that you get the data to the federal government when we gave them our support. And we said, make sure you looked at Taiwan and Southeast Asia. The Southeast Asian nations, Taiwan, especially South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, have done a marvellous job.

Singapore with the exception of Singapore, all the other three and Israel, which had also done a good job, Mike, they have eternal vigilance and they’re ready to do respond quickly to threats because they’re constantly under threat. So that is something we don’t have.

But the, in Taiwan, their population is about the same as Australia. They have 24 million we have 25. The population density in Taiwan is far, far higher than us because their 24 are crammed into a small Island. And they also had an earlier and stronger exchange with China because they’re Chinese themselves.

And so they had a lot more travelling between Taiwan and mainland China. And so they had a much greater problem. Now what the Taiwanese did, and we need to recognise that Australia has had 130 deaths and that’s good, but the Taiwanese have had seven, even despite they had an earlier virus, earlier contact with the virus, seven.

And the other significant point with the Taiwanese is that they didn’t lock down their economy. They actually kept their economy going and they gave responsibility to the people. Now, there are three things that they have done really well. First of all, their basic strategy was to isolate the sick and isolate the vulnerable.

That’s what real quarantine is. Quarantine is not isolating everyone into lockdown. Quarantine is isolating the sick and the vulnerable and separating them out. The second thing they did was that they implemented massive testing and they have a screening process for the testing. And I think South Korea is the same.

They test for high temperature knowing that that’s not always reliable, but they test for high temperature. If someone has a high temperature, then they go and get tested for COVID. And if they test negative, but they still have, for COVID, but still have a high temperature, then they’re allowed to go to work.

So they put responsibility on the workplaces, and what we’ve got in those countries is the responsibility on the individual citizens. And when you have that responsibility, there’s a far greater sense of accountability rather than when it’s imposed.

And the other thing that they’ve done, and I’ve only learned about this recently is they’ve got a much stricter tracing regime, but the tracing apparently doesn’t go right into people’s whereabouts it goes into their localities, and that helps the authorities then get one step in front.

So what I think the, what I think now with those lessons from Taiwan, and we encourage the government to look at Taiwan and South Korea. What I think that we should be doing now is we should be in Australia revising and reviewing our current work. How effective have we been? Where have we not been effective?

We need to recover and plan for recovery in two areas. First of all, to get our economy back to pre COVID, which is February, but then we need to aim far, far higher Mike, we need to get our economy back to, so to the point where we have our sovereignty, restored, our economic sovereignty and economic security and our independence.

We’ve been following this nonsense from the United nations now for almost 70 years. And it’s destroying our sovereignty and our economic independence. And so what the UN has been preaching and our governments have been preaching is interdependence, which means that we are dependent on other countries.

And so what we need to do is to get back at productive capacity, especially for manufacturing and agriculture. And then the third thing we need to do is to plan for future viruses, because this won’t be the last one. And so the biggest thing of all Mike, that we’ve learned is that the Taiwanese, the South Koreans, the Israelis, the Singaporeans, they trust their government.

They don’t give them carte blanche, but they do trust their government. And the government’s lead. In this country governments are too busy, fabricating policies and making and misrepresenting the circumstances.

We haven’t seen the truth on this from the prime minister. We haven’t seen the truth on this from Daniel Andrews, nor Annastacia Palaszczuk. We wrote to Annastacia Palaszczuk and said, “where’s your data. “We want to have a look at it.” She said, it’s in two locations, we went to both locations.

There’s no data. So Scott Morrison right up front. He was saying, six months hibernation, six months hibernation, six months hibernation. We knew there was no plan. And now we know there’s no data driving that plan. These governments are not trusted in this country on a range of issues, electricity, agriculture, stealing farmers property rights.

I mean, you could go on forever, selling ourselves out through international agreements, selling ourselves out the free trade agreements that are giving the other parties the power, we have got to establish trust in our government. And that can only become, can only come with reliance on data and reliance on telling the truth its time Australia got back to that.

[Mike]

Just wondering about the data to have the data we need all the input. We actually have that at our fingertips with credit cards and with Apple, for example, and the other Android devices. And we can, we can actually find out where people have been. The problem we have at the moment, according to professor Fendos, was that it’s reliant on us being honourable or telling the truth. So by having all that data available, it’s going to impact on inverted commas ‘civil liberties.’

[Malcolm]

Well, I get, I go back to my experience when I graduated from university with a mining engineering degree, I thought I’d better go out and start learning something that really mattered. So I worked as a miner for about three years, various mines around the country. And then I went overseas and worked in mines overseas.

So I’ve worked at the coalface and I developed a very healthy respect for miners for all people. And then when I became a mine manager, I would go underground a lot, not to do people’s work, but just to have, listen, and to look so that I can understand what they were going through and what their needs were.

And I can remember turning up at one mine brand new and the workforce detested the mine management because the mine management told lies and it took me a few months, but people started to trust me and that’s extremely important. And then what I was able to do was also to hand over responsibility and authority to the people doing the job.

I mean, not everything we can’t expect the miner to make every decision for the business, but their own jobs. And when people are given that responsibility and that authority they usually come good. And so what’s happening here is government tries to impose things in a crisis.

And we think we’re, a lot of Australians then distrust that, but in, Southeast Asia they’re already practising those things. And we’ve gotta give those governments credit because they’ve had SARS before. So we understand that that’s made it easier, but they’ve learned from that.

And they put it into practise and people are now trusting the government. So if the government tells the truth, if the government hands over responsibility to business owners, venue managers, then they’ll see the people respond because then people take accountability.

But when it’s shoved on them under threat and under control, it’s not taken that accountability is taken when there’s freedom for people to make decisions that autonomy is really important. And we’ve gotta keep giving trust back to people in this country and get the government the hell out of people’s lives.

[Mike]

What about state government? When we have this, where, we’re all Australians, but we have, the new country of Queensland, the new country of Victoria, the new country, new South Wales, South Australia, blah, blah, blah, blah. And each state has its own, not agenda, but it its own approach.

And maybe an agenda also it becomes a little bit political because where the Joan of arc of WA, with a Joan of arc of Victoria, Tasmania. So how do we get all the States working as one country instead of being a number of different countries within this terrible state of Australia?

[Malcolm]

Well, first of all, the thing that unites strategies is data. When everyone’s got the correct data, you’ll end up seeing strategies similar, but across every state, but they will be fine tuned for each state because Queensland is the only state in the country. Yes, that’s correct.

It’s the only state in the country where there are more people outside the capital city than inside the capital city, we’re more decentralised. We’re more spread up the coast with the sparse population inland. And so that’s different from Victoria. That’s different from Tassie.

That’s different from new South Wales and then Western Australia is different again. So I’m very much a believer in our constitution, federal constitution, which is based on competitive federalism, giving a huge amount of sovereignty to the independent States.

Only on national issues should we come together that’s defence, border security, foreign affairs, those kinds of things. And so I’m in favour of letting the state run, but the States themselves also need to get the data so that they can manage effectively. And they need to manage trust in a trustworthy way.

The fundamental thing that we did wrong in this country, I believe with COVID was that we looked automatically to Britain and to a man called Neil Ferguson. And that was a mistake. This Neil Ferguson has done I’ve forgotten the name of the school in medical school, medical college in Britain, but he’s in there and they’ve done a lot of modelling and his models have been proven to be completely wacky.

They have exaggerated the consequences of just about every virus they’ve cared to model every disease they’ve cared to model. Foot and mouth disease they cost the British government way back then when a billion was worth a billion, $10 billion, they cost the British farm economy. They have completely exaggerated.

They forecast millions of deaths, when out of the virus out of the disease in Britain when there were only 120 deaths. I mean, it’s completely ridiculous. We looked to them went straight to lockdown. We didn’t look to Asia. We should’ve looked at Taiwan as well as Britain and worked out where the reality is.

Donald Trump himself started calling out the British. And I don’t think he named Ferguson, but he that’s what he was implying. And we should be coming up with our own strategy, but looking at Taiwan, looking at everywhere in the world and then developing our own. So it’s up to the state governments.

I believe they should be independent. They should be working independently. That’s what gives us greater accountability. It worked up until about 1923, and then that’s been smashed and we’ve centralised more and more. So we need to get back to that competitive federalism, independent States working together. And when they’ve got data, they will have a solid plan. We’ve got to get back to truthful government that relies upon objective data.

[Mike]

Very interesting times we must continue more discussions. There’s so many questions or conversation pieces such as border control, the forthcoming Queensland elections in Australia, the economy and even football. So we can do that next time.

[Malcolm]

I look forward to it Mike. Happy to contact me anytime.

[Mike]

Senator Malcolm Roberts, thank you very much.

[Malcolm]

Thank you, Mike. All the best.

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Throw the book at Black Lives Matter lawbreakers

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It is vital that our premier takes a tough stand on any unnecessary and risky marches/protests in our State. We can not risk going down the path of Victoria.

Transcript

It’s so pleasing to see the New South Wales Police Commissioner in response to the Black Lives Matter protests, coming out tomorrow, saying to his policemen that they must fine as many people as they can for taking part in that protest.

That’s a welcome change from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who said when the last Black Lives Matter protest occurred in Brisbane, that “Please don’t attend. “But if you do then maintain social distance.”

And as a result, 30,000 people followed her invitation to maintain social distance. Premier Dan Andrew pretty much did the same and just waved them on through and encouraged the protesters

And now look at Victoria and now look at New South Wales. So what we need to see is Premier Palaszczuk in this state, take the lead from New South Wales and be hard on criminals.

The Labor Government in Queensland has a history of being soft on criminals and very hard on everyday Australians.

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Restore our productive environment

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I will say it again. We need our economic productive capacity to be restored, we need our economic resilience to be restored, we need our economic sovereignty and independence to be restored, and we need our economic security to be restored.

Transcript

Thank you madam acting deputy president. As a servant of the people of Queensland and Australia, I support this bill. We need though, to do far more. We need to get manufacturing moving. We need to protect Australia from the risks of sources of imported goods drying up, and we need, as Senator O’Sullivan has said, jobs, jobs, jobs.

Queenslanders and Australians everywhere have heard us speak about the gaps in our productive capacity, the gaps in economic resilience, the gaps in our economic sovereignty and the gaps in our national security. That was before COVID.

Now it’s even more so, especially since COVID revealed that we did not even have enough personal protective equipment to protect our valued healthcare workers and everyday Australians. And now we have to store our own oil, our own oil in the USA because we have nowhere to store it here.

And at first we couldn’t even after COVID, we couldn’t even manufacture ventilators, but thanks to Aussie ingenuity and a personal thank you to all those innovative Australians who did step up to fill this gap. Certainly, we need the skills.

Australia needs the skills and the capability to ensure that we can protect ourselves from future health disasters and economic disasters, especially things like the prolonged border closures of, or international transport closures or blockades cut the sea transport.

And these are possibilities. We see the news of what’s happening in the South China seas. We see the growing confrontation between America and China. We need to think about our security. So this government has presented a bill for the creation of the position of national skills commissioner.

Yet we need to ensure this is not just an advisory role. Just setting up this office for four years is costing taxpayers over $48 million. And I quite often hear Liberal and Labor people and the National saying, “We’ve spend a million here, “we spent tens of millions here, “we spent hundreds of millions here, “we spent a couple of billion here and there.”

It’s not the money that matters, it’s the environment in which that money can be turned into something beneficial for the people of Australia. So we expect a return on that 48 million. A return on investment by giving the commissioner the teeth to ensure that vocational training across Australia is high in quality, consistent and competitively priced.

Training by itself is not the answer. It needs to be good, effective training. So where is the accountability between the federal funding of approximately $1.5 billion a year to the States, to the vocational providers, to ensure that our vocational trainees, get a high quality education and an affordable education that really lands them a job.

If the government is going to invest $1.5 billion per year in vocational education and training, then Australians have a right to ensure that our taxes are well spent. So we need a review of the performance of the national skills commissioner after 12 months, or possibly after three years, we need that review.

We also need to understand that it is not the commissioner who is going to get us effective training. It is not the commissioner who is going to decide what skills are needed. Government, Liberal, Labor, Nationals have shown a very poor track record of anticipating demand for specific skills.

Those decisions must be based upon what the market needs. It’s the men and women in work. It’s the men and women investing, men and women leading corporations that determine the skills we need and actually going beneath that, it’s the market that drives those skills.

And they will tell us what skills are needed to service the market. More importantly, we need to restart manufacturing in our country, and that needs more than training. It needs much more than training. It needs an integrated approach and industry and economic environment, which enables and encourages Australian investment.

How the hell can people afford to invest when energy prices are so high? How the hell can it be that we don’t have reliable, affordable, stable, synchronous electricity? We have the cheapest coal in the world, the highest quality coal in the world.

We export that to China and they produce coal far, far more cheaply at about 40%, they sell it to their manufacturers at 40% of the price we sell it. Why, because our electricity prices have doubled in the last 10 years. Why, because of Liberal, Labor and Nationals policies’ based on rubbish, a climate scam.

That is what’s destroying our manufacturing industry. Labour costs are a smaller component of manufacturing these days than they used to be. Electricity prices are significant. We’ve gone from the lowest price electricity to the world’s highest prices.

And that’s been due to regulations based not on data, but on opinions from the Liberal, Labor and Nationals governments. How can it be that China, takes our coal thousands of kilometres and sells it at 40% of the price that we sell it for?

It’s regulations, it’s government screwing with the market, it’s government screwing with regulations. Listen to some of these factors, all government driven. The renewable energy target, introduced by John Howard’s government.

The national electricity market, introduced before John Howard, if memory serves me correctly, but worsened under John Howard’s government. National energy market is really a racket, not a market. And that’s the people in Australia are paying for the prices that the retail margins are guaranteed in some states at high levels with very little risk.

The networks are gold plated because of regulations. And then we’ve got privatisation. In Queensland, our state, the Labor Party up there, and the state government uses that as a tax, $1.4 to $1.5 billion a year in tax, due to excess charges from the generators.

Privatisation, the sale of assets, is failing around the country. That is an essential asset and it’s crippling our manufacturing. It’s crippling jobs right across. Agriculture, farmers won’t irrigate because the price of water is too high. Price of pumping water is too high.

Second thing, tax, that’s part of the business environment. Multinationals in our country are going without paying tax. Any company tax due to agreements from Robert Menzies’ Liberal Government in 1953, perpetuated with the lack of tax on the North West Shelf Gas that was enabled by Bob Hawke’s Labor Government in the 1980s.

Both sides have done that. Former deputy commissioner of taxation Jim Killaly, said in 1996 and the year 2010, that 90% of Australia’s large companies are foreign owned and since 1953 have paid little or no tax. What that means is that mums and dads, families, small businesses, Australian owned businesses have to pay more tax than they need to.

It also means that the Australian businesses are at a competitive disadvantage of about 30% because they have to pay company tax and large companies have to pay company tax and the foreign companies don’t.

So taxation, we need to set a level playing field by taxing multinationals and reducing the tax burden, simplifying the tax system, having a comprehensive review of tax, because that is one of the most important factors driving the lack of investment from Australians.

We also have an abundance of regulations that are crippling, that is crippling our country. We have red tape from the bureaucracies that state federal and even local level. We have green tape driven by rampant environmentalists. We have blue tape driven by UN, and that is arguably the largest component of tape.

The blue tape, most expensive of all, put in place by Liberal, Labor, Nationals Governments. And then we have economic management. How can companies prepare? How can companies plan for the longer term, which is needed these days when we have governments, making economic management decisions purely based upon electoral electoral payoffs, not just every three years as it used to be, but now it’s an annual cycle.

Budgets are based upon bribing taxpayers to vote for that particular party. Economic management is now 12 month issue, and it’s very short-term and it’s counterproductive to good business environment. We have states now with lower accountability because competitive federalism has been white anted.

The Queensland Labor Government can sit on closing its borders and decimating our tourism, decimating small business in our state. And why, because under the Commonwealth Constitution, we are supposed to have competitive federalism yet in 1943, the income tax was stolen from the States and given to the federal government.

And now essentially more than 50% of state government expenditure is from the federal government, tied to federal government conditions and guidelines, which means effectively that the federal government is running much of what the States do.

The federal government is running much of what the local councils do around Queensland and around Australia. I was in the Balonne Shire council in 19, sorry, in 2017 in February and they told me an answer to a question of mine that 73% of their annual revenue comes from the federal government with strings attached.

Not only does the federal government tell them how to manage their local community, the federal government only has three to five year windows, which means the local councils can’t go beyond that time frame during their planning. How can local councils make a long-term plan?

This is what’s hampering governance in this country. So I plead with the government to make sure that we focus on our economic productive capacity, our economic resilience, our economic sovereignty, our economic security, our economic independence, which has been smashed by the quest for the elitist quest for, interdependence which is really depending upon others, that is a loss of dependence.

Nonetheless, this legislation will help all Queenslanders to improve our state’s economy and to repay the debt hole in which Labor Government in Queensland has buried Queenslanders. We need training, but we need jobs. We need Australian jobs.

We need Queensland jobs, especially in regional Queensland. Training is a minor component, yet an important component. Beyond that, we need to get back to basics to create the economic environment, to drive the Australian investment.

As I said, I’ll say it again, we need economic productive capacity to be restored. We need economic resilience to be restored. We need economic sovereignty and independence to be restored. We need economic security to be restored. Australia has the people, has the resources, has the opportunity, has the potential.

We just need to get back to what we had, get back to the basics. And in the basics, Australia led the world in per capita gross domestic product per capita income in the early years of our Federation. When our constitution was followed and the States behave competitively toward each other.

That’s what we need to get back to a productive environment. Thank you Madam acting deputy president.

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Questions to Government: COVID19 Response

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In the Senate, I asked Senator Cormann three questions on the governments COVID19 response.

Transcript

[President]

Senator Roberts

[Roberts]

Thank you, Mr. President. My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann. Southeast Asian nations like Taiwan quickly learned with regard to COVID that they just had to isolate the sick and the vulnerable.

And that allowed healthy and productive people in businesses to keep working and earning money. The result is that their economy in Taiwan and other Southeast Asian nations remained healthy, and they had far fewer deaths than Australia.

Minister, was there any consideration given in April to changing Australia’s COVID strategy when Taiwan and other Southeast Asian nations had already proved that their strategy worked and was far superior to your government’s strategy?

[President]

The Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Cormann.

[Cormann]

Thank you very much, Mister President. When the crisis hit, there’s no question that we considered a whole range of alternative options on how best to respond to it, but in making decisions and in making judgements we were guided by the advice of relevant experts and in relation to how best to deal with the health threat,

We were guided principally by the advice of the Australian Health Principals Protection Committee, the chief medical and chief health officers from around Australia and the Commonwealth, and I think it’s fair to say for a range of reasons,

But the early decision to impose border restrictions in terms of non-residents who had spent any time of the previous 14 days in mainland China, not being able to come to Australia, and imposing quarantine requirements on Australians and permanent residents having spent time of the previous 14 days in mainland China, has demonstrably helped delay the spread of the virus,

Giving us time to prepare both in terms of the hospital capacity to deal with the potential inflow of patients, but also to prepare the risk management processes that would best equip us to save lives by suppressing, slowing down and suppressing the spread of the virus and helping to put, of course, the economic support measures in place.

While every single death is tragic and it’s one more than you would like to see, but again, I mean, comparatively speaking, comparatively speaking, the number of deaths in Australia is very low internationally. The number of infections is very low.

The number of community transmission is extremely low right now, and we believe that by and large, our strategy has worked. Now, I mean, this is not a perfect environment, you were presented with, we were presented with a rapidly evolving crisis situation.

We made the best possible judgments in the circumstances, guided by the expert advice. On balance, I believe

[President]

Order, Senator Cormann

[Cormann]

that we’ve made good decisions as a country.

[President]

Senator Roberts, supplementing question.

[Roberts]

Thank you, Mr. President. I acknowledge Senator Cormann’s statement, but he fails to acknowledge that the economy has been devastated as a result of the government’s strategy when other economies have not been devastated.

Minister, hasn’t your government’s COVID strategy put the Australian economy and many Australian small businesses and jobs at unnecessary risk and left us with a debt we had to have?

[President]

Senator Cormann.

[Cormann]

Thank you very much, Mr. President. It is certainly true that we were forced to impose significant sacrifices on many Australians. The restrictions that we had to put in place as a country on the economy in order to save lives by slowing down and suppressing the spread of the virus has imposed, of course, significant burdens on many businesses and on many working Australians.

That’s why we put in place the economic support package that we have, in order to provide, to keep as many businesses in business through the transition as possible, to keep as many working Australians connected to their employer during this transition as possible and to provide enhanced support to those Australians who, through no fault of their own, lost their job because of the Coronavirus crisis.

Now, you know, you can argue whether one decision or the other decision could have been made differently, but if you look at the outcomes, if you look at the actual outcomes, both on the health front and on an economic front, I think that Australia’s in a very good position, comparatively speaking

[President]

Order, Senator Cormann.

[Cormann]

to other countries around the world.

[President]

Senator Roberts, a final supplemental question.

[Roberts]

Thank you, Mr. President. Minister, everyday Australians want to know how the Prime Minister will ensure that if businesses do close or go into liquidation, that receivers and administrators will ensure that Australian jobs are preserved and that affected businesses can only be sold to Australians first and not be cheaply flogged off to foreigners.

[President]

Senator Cormann.

[Cormann]

Thank you very much, Mr. President. In relation to foreign investments, you’d be aware that the Treasurer’s put in place some temporary measures to ensure that Australian businesses dealing with the consequences and the impact of the Coronavirus crisis are protected as appropriate in the context of any attempt at foreign takeover.

But, you know, in a broader sense, in a broader sense, when we’re of course focused on doing everything we can to maximise the strength of the economic recovery on the other side, and then we also said that on the other side, in order to maximise the strength of the economic recovery we will need to rely on foreign investment into the future, to maximise our economic growth opportunity to the future.

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Matter of Public Importance: Different rules for protestors

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This afternoon Pauline and I spoke on her ‘Matter of Public Importance’.

“Allowing activists to breach COVID19 restrictions without punishment, even as the same restrictions are devastating jobs, businesses and lives, is a grave insult to law-abiding Australians.”

In addition to discussing the border closure in Queensland, Pauline used facts and logic to discuss the Black Live Matter Movement and Indigenous deaths in custody but was labelled by Labor and the Greens as a racist.

This tells me that they have no evidence to dispute her so they resort to lazy name calling.

My speech starts at the 5 minute mark.

Transcript

[President]

Senator Hanson.

[Hanson]

Thank you very much, Mr. President. The matter of public importance I’ve raised today, is based on our state government’s, in particular, the weak leadership of Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, for allowing activists to breach COVID-19 restrictions without punishment.

Even as the same restrictions are devastating jobs, businesses and lives. It’s a grave insult to all law abiding Australians. Last weekend, we saw tens of thousands of Australians pack city centres across the nation in protest of Black Lives Matter.

This protest started in the United States with the unnecessary death of a Black American, at the hands of police officers. No one could possibly condone the way in which George Floyd died. But what upsets me, is the attitude of many people black and white, that his death matters more because he is black.

And yet when a white 40 year old Australian American woman by the name of Justine Damond was shot, there was no protest. No one really cared, because she was white. George Floyd had been made out to be a martyr. This man has been in and out of prison numerous times.

He was a criminal, and a dangerous thug. George Floyd had a criminal history of breaking into a pregnant woman’s home, looking for drugs and money, and threatening her by holding the gun to her stomach. It sickened me to see people holding up signs saying, Black Lives Matter, in memory of this American criminal.

I’m sorry, but all lives matter. And if I saw signs being paraded on the day, that said that very thing, we wouldn’t be having this debate. More whites die in Australia and America in relation to deaths in custody than blacks, that’s a fact. But where’s the outrage for white people?

For the majority people in custody, it’s because they’ve broken the law. In other words, they’ve committed crimes against innocent people. To hear brainless comments from people saying that our indigenous Australians should not be locked up, as was the case put forward in 1995, is absolutely ridiculous.

Black and white Australians must face punishment, if they commit an offence or break the law. We cannot allow bleeding hearts, and those on the left to destroy the fabric of our society, and our freedom. The public sentiment calls for those who do the wrong thing to be held to account for their actions.

I’m used to seeing gutless behaviour from political parties. But what I have seen transpire over the last few days, the word gutless doesn’t even begin to describe it. When the severity of the Coronavirus pandemic became apparent, we asked Australians to make some sacrifices.

We asked them to stay at home, to shut down their businesses, we asked people to put their livelihoods on the line, for the well being of every Australian. And they’ve done that, much to their own demise. So after what I saw over the weekend, I don’t blame the 445,000, small mom and dad businesses in my home state for saying they feel betrayed.

And although there were just two new cases of Coronavirus across Australia, the Queensland Labour Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, has kept our state border in lockdown, like a scene out of Germany in the 1960s, when they established Checkpoint Charlie.

And while Checkpoint Palaszczuk claims to be saving Queenslanders from the COVID-19. She authorises a mass gathering of 30,000 Black Lives Matter protesters in Brisbane, which flew in the face of all social distancing laws. Not one person was reported to be fined, or held to account.

Even when someone was filmed jumping on a police car, what an insult to law abiding Australians. We saw the scene played out across Australia, and every politician who turned a blind eye, should hang their heads in shame. People are furious and I don’t blame them.

They want to know how can this happen when our pubs, clubs, gyms, restaurants and businesses are still crippled by the full force of COVID-19 restrictions. They can barely have 20 people in a room. Doesn’t Queensland’s economy matter? Doesn’t Australia’s economy matter?

These activists should never have been allowed to march, and call Australians racist, especially when we can’t even hold a proper funeral for our loved ones. I say shame on the politicians who were too gutless, too scared of losing votes to stand up to the mob.

[Roberts]

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, of all colours. I reinforce the right of people to protest, and speak lawfully. We are in favour, in one nation, of freedom over control.

I wanna address straight away though, and make the comment that Senator Hanson condemned the killing of George Floyd in her speech. It stuns me that Senator Ayres, can so blatantly reverse Senator Hanson’s clear position. That is dishonest.

I wanna refer to Senator Rice who said quote, “Racism exhibited by Senator Hanson.” That too from Senator Rice is a lie. It is false, it is dishonest, it is cowardly. Stating accurate data as Senator Hanson did, in a coherent, logical argument.

Calling for all people, regardless of skin colour, or race to be treated the same under our laws, is the reverse of racism. It is fairness, it is honesty, it is care. Yet out of touch and ignorant policies, such as those of the Greens, artificially raising energy prices, and tossing workers out on the scrapheap.

That is what exposes the Greens fault lines, across our society. These policies of the Greens are hurting all people, and most savagely our most vulnerable and poorest people, black and white. Resorting falsely to labels, shows that Senator Rice, cannot count a senator Hanson’s data, and logical argument.

And I remind the Labor Party, that Senator Polly tweeted, their Senator Polly tweeted, “All lives matter.” And she was slaughtered by her own Labor politicians, she withdrew the tweet. So accordingly, I can conclude that in the Labor Party, all lives do not matter. Now let’s turn to the protest.

I draw people’s attention the protest of activists last week, in breach of the COVID-19 restrictions. They blatantly ignored the stated health concerns, and willfully broke the law. That is the issue.

The protesters have not been punished, yet our law abiding businesses continue to be punished, and livelihoods are being crushed, complying with these restrictions. Tourism and hospitality are key sectors in Queensland, shouldering the burden.

A burden that the Queensland Labor government placed, and continues to place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the community. Well beyond these border restrictions use by dates. The Palaszczuk Labor government, implicitly gave permission for 30,000 demonstrators to turn out for the Black Lives Matter protest.

Meanwhile, Queensland businesses stay closed, restaurants stay closed, and stadiums stay empty. And Premier Palaszczuk remains obstinate, and defers critical distance decisions to Queensland’s Chief Medical Officer.

To add insult to injury, emotional and financial injury, the Queensland Labor government has now callously stated, our border closures and restrictions, have not created financial hardship for our border closures, what? Meanwhile, these economies continue to unravel.

That is Labor’s arrogance, insensitivity, callous disregard for people, dishonesty, weakness, gutlessness, and fear. This cold hearted indifference to the people and businesses of Queensland, undermines any remaining confidence that business may have had in Premier Palaszczuk’s Labor Government, to respond to COVID-19 pandemic based not on data, but on hidden agendas.

This simply does not make sense, and it is not fair to allow businesses to continue to collapse due to government hypocrisy, and cowardice. We all know the reality is quite different, because while some people can congregate and demonstrate, people on the border continue to suffer.

Over the next three months, which is when Queensland’s Chief Health Officer believes it is realistic to open the Queensland border, the Gold Coast will lose a further $1 billion in revenue, on top of the existing losses.

Southern visitors spend three times more than intrastate travellers, so it is not enough to expect that Queensland travellers alone, will save the Glitter Strip economy. The Gold Coast Airport, traffic has fallen 99% this April and May, versus the same time last year.

This is financial hardship, and the Queensland Labor Government, still has not provided the data they relied upon to close the borders in first place. Lifeline is taking calls of distress from people. State and federal politicians who attended the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, broke the law.

The Palaszczuk Labor Government in Queensland has a duty of care to all Queenslanders, and Labor’s blatant hypocrisy needs to stop.

[President]

Thank you Senator Roberts.

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Senator Roberts Concerned about Australia’s reliance on Professor Ferguson’s exaggerated COVID-19 modelling

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Senator Roberts has expressed deep concern that our national and state management of COVID-19 maybe responding to the exaggerated modelling predictions of Professor Ferguson.

Senator Roberts said, “Professor Ferguson’s assumptions that form the basis of his modelling have produced sensationally inaccurate predictions and this is not the first time Ferguson’s predictions have been wildly overstated.”

Professor Ferguson’s track record includes, but is not limited to, predicting 50,000 deaths from mad cow disease, reality was 177 deaths; 65,000 would die of swine flu, reality was 457 deaths and 200 million people may die from bird flu, reality was 282.

The Department of Health website cites the use of the Peter Doherty Institute Report, which references reliance on assumptions from the Imperial College COVID19 NPI Modelling Report, of which Professor Neil Ferguson is the first author.

“It is irrefutable that Professor Ferguson’s modelling predictions are exaggerated and his work has had far-reaching devastating impacts on national economies.”

Foot and mouth disease, which cost the British government £10 billion, was an extraordinary overreaction to an exaggerated claim made by Professor Ferguson.

The Australian Government has enacted a record $320 billion package, the economy is dismantling, the employment rate is rising and the nation’s mental health issues are starting to show themselves. 

Senator Roberts has written to the Prime Minister and Queensland’s Premier asking whether these significant health and economic responses, which will affect future generations, are based on the Doherty Institute Report and by default, the assumptions in Ferguson’s Imperial College Report.

“No business, economy nor community can hibernate and then just return to normal.  There will be devastating consequences from these decisions for some time to come,” Senator Roberts said.

“The people of Queensland and Australia deserve to have confidence that the Government’s serious and far-reaching decisions during this health crisis are based on credible and robust data and modelling,” Senator Roberts added.

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