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Australian universities have their hands out for COVID19 stimulus monies.

When you pay your Vice Chancellors over $1 million and spend taxpayers money on non-core building activity, I say NO. 

Transcript

Mr. President, I move the motion as amended.

Senator Ruston.

[Ruston] I seek leave to make a short statement.

[President] Leave is granted for one minute.

[Ruston] The Morrison Government Community Group to support those in need, including international students, universities, together with states and territories of established hardship funds, and other supports. Australia’s universities are autonomous institutions governed by university councils. Reporting of liquidity across the sector as of the 31st of December 2018 showed total cash and investments of $20.3 billion. Universities are eligible for job keeping if they meet the relevant criteria.

Senator Roberts.

[Roberts] I seek leave to make a short statement.

[President] Leave is granted for one minute.

[Roberts] Thank you. One Nation opposes this motion. We are concerned that everyday Australians who are doing it tough right now may have to bail out the universities that have become dependent on foreign students. These universities expose us to significant financial risk when they’ve spent vast amounts of our money on overseas students to create more revenue for them.

So where was their detailed business case in their risk analysis? If government did a utilisation study on these campuses before approving more building, they would find that their existing buildings are underused. And universities should not be in the accommodation business.

James Cook University has just tendered to develop student accommodation at a time when I found 216 vacant rental properties in Town’s Hall today. James Cooke University should give us our money back. We value their research and teaching, but they must act professionally.

If the universities were serious, then they would lead by example and cut the million dollar plus vice chancellor’s salaries. Why won’t they? Because they lack accountability.

This evening I spoke about how the Liberal and Labor parties have worked hand in hand to destroy our country.

Transcript

-Senator Roberts.

-Thank you Madame Acting Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I remind the government of a word whose meaning they have forgotten: democracy, essential for accountability. Yesterday, a group of 10 former judges, leading lawyers, and integrity experts sent an open letter to Prime Minister Morrison voicing their concern at the gutting of the parliament.

These leading Australians include former Justice of the High Court, Mary Gaudron, who described the Prime Minister’s actions as “unprecedented and undemocratic.” One Nation represents the interests of people who raise issues directly with us. We can’t do our jobs if the Senate sits a day or two every now and then. This is the house of review.

It may suit the government to never have their work reviewed, but that’s not how our democracy works. The Morrison government is not entitled to the Senate’s support on every matter. My remarks are not just criticism of the government, but of the opposition as well.

The Senate could have stopped, or amended, the gutting of our role if we were given the opportunity. We were not given the opportunity because the ALP rolled over and went along with the government. What kind of opposition are they? Since my return to this place, I have watched the opposition crowd in together with the government on benches that were never designed for the government and the opposition to be cosy.

The crossbench are now the opposition. Sadly, we’re rendered ineffective while the opposition and the government form this unholy alliance. What should we call it, Madam Acting Deputy President? The Uni Party? The Lib-Lab Duopoly? Lib-Labs.

The Lib-Labs combined to vote down a One Nation initiative to provide water to our farmers. The Lib-Labs combined to suppress action on our motion providing remediation, like-for-like relocation and compensation for the government’s PFAS disaster across the country. After each in turn, when in opposition promised to take up the PFAS cause.

The Lib-Labs combined to vote down the One Nation motion to provide banking customers with a code of banking practise that actually gave banking customers some basic rights. It’s no wonder that the opposition has decided it’s just easier to have no parliament than to have to keep cozying up with the government to vote down great work from One Nation and the crossbench.

This is not a recent event. The decision to sign away Australian sovereignty to the United Nations was a joint venture, accelerated under Labour Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, who appeared to be bitter enemies, yet implemented UN policies.

All these years later the partnership continues. No baseload power stations built in Queensland since Kogan Creek in 2007 is on both of you. No dams in 30 years is on both of you. An unemployment rate that has gone from 1.5% in 1972 to 5.5% before COVID hit is on both of you.

The highest electricity prices in the world are on both of you. Well may Labour make fun of the phrase “snapping back,” as you have done today. The economy cannot snap back. Economic resilience is provided by middle class enterprise. Yet small business was belted hard well before the virus.

Water, electricity, government charges, commercial rental, red, green and blue UN tape have gone up while the incomes of their customers, everyday Australians, have gone down faster than opposition leader Anthony Albanese’s approval numbers.

Australia does lead the world in one thing, we have the largest decline in the number of small business startups in the western world. Down 40% over 20 years, despite our population growing 50% in that period. 50%, yet business startups down.

Oh, and that 50% increase in population has caused Australia to have the highest real estate prices in the world. And that is on both of you as well. What person in their right mind would start a business in such a hostile environment?

The Liberals and Nationals seem perfectly happy transferring wealth from small business to global corporations, whose interest they represent so well. It is a fundamental of Labor’s brand of socialism that a population reliant on big government is a population incapable of resisting big government oppression.

The same oppression premiers Andrews and Palaszczuk are now trialling in Victoria and Queensland. The LNP and the ALP seek different outcomes from the same actions. They are joined at the hip in the pursuit of the elimination of middle class enterprise.

This does not serve the interests of the Australian people. We must bring back democracy.

We must bring back democracy and accountability. Thank you.

While Australia has been able to mitigate the deaths from Coronavirus, the Prime Minister still hasn’t given the country a plan for how we now get out of the lockdowns that are crippling the country. We need the modelling, we need the facts and we need a plan as soon as possible.

23rd of March speech

8th of April speech

First letter to the Prime Minister

Second Letter to the Prime Minister

Transcript

Hear that ticking? People’s frustrations. Building, with being kept in the dark. Because when it comes to the coronavirus, COVID-19, the government is sharing only part of the truth, and vital information seems to be withheld. To explain that, I will explain what seemed to be these three options.

Firstly, ending isolation with a sudden mass release, and why that is not on. Secondly, waiting for release until a vaccine is developed, and why that could hurt. Thirdly, isolating the sick and the vulnerable, and releasing the healthy, has proven successful overseas. And an added point, on treatment, for those with coronavirus. While I empathise with the government’s very difficult challenge, people need answers. There’s no manual on how to do this.

Yet people are feeling confused, afraid, concerned. Some feel lost, grieving for those dying, and grieving for our country. Some feel angry. Many are still living in disbelief, and plagued with uncertainty, and fear over how to pay their bills. People want to know what has to be done, why it has to be done, how long before it’s over, and what will be the cost, financial, social, personal, mental, emotional. It is the people who have to repay these huge bills of up to around 300 billion dollars, to which the government has committed Australian taxpayers.

People have a right to know the facts, yet the prime minister’s first discussion of modelling, on the 7th of April, lacks specifics on the expected duration of isolation, lacked a plan, lacked triggers for releasing people. Simply repeating the words, six month hibernation, is not enough. It kills people’s hope and raises their concerns. A solid plan is fundamental for trust and hope.

People expect governments to lead, and expect leaders to have a plan based on solid data and facts, and to share that plan, and the information behind the plan. We need to acknowledge successes, the government, and Australians generally, can claim success in avoiding the overwhelming of healthcare services, and avoiding a high death count. Sadly, 63 people have died.

Yet that is way better than many nations. In my speech in the first special one-day parliamentary session, on Monday the 23rd of March, I stressed the need to take hard, strong, and quick action. Because many politicians are afraid of being seen to be making mistakes, or being wrong. What would have happened if it had just been mild?

Two days later, I repeated that call in my letter to the prime minister. A little over two weeks later, in the second special one-day parliamentary session, on Wednesday the 8th of April, and in my letter to the prime minister yesterday, I discussed the need for a plan for recovery, and for sharing that plan with the people.

Now there are two health and safety aspects. Individual health, protecting people’s lives. Preventing an overwhelming of the healthcare services. After a lot of public pressure, the prime minister was pushed into a media conference on Tuesday the 7th of April, to discuss the government’s modelling of the virus’s potential impact. Disappointingly, he was light on details and fact, and big on words.

He did not release the modelling, did not discuss the key assumptions of infection, transmission, and fatality rates, did not discuss the variables modelled, discussed no results from the modelling. How then could people make meaningful conclusions? We couldn’t! The prime minister did not discuss various alternative strategies for a national plan. Our staff found the New Zealand modelling report, and, it’s worth noting, the Kiwis thanked Aussies for helping them build their model.

Yet the Kiwis released their report many days before the prime minister’s media conference! And the UK’s Imperial College of London model has been released for some time. Both show that unrestrained release of people from isolation would lead to an epidemic, unless successful treatments or vaccines are released. A key point is that the virus still exists in the community, and releasing restrictions without monitoring would be disastrous. Because when we’re let out, the virus will still be waiting for us.

Now the graph you see is from the Kiwi modelling report. The left-hand side, with blue background, shows isolation, the period of isolation. And the government strategy of lockdowns could be seen as the green line, the number of infections that hugs the baseline until isolation ends. Then, in the white background, that’s the period where isolation ends.

And the epidemic breaks out, because the virus is still among us. Now I’m no expert, and want you to make sure that you know that I don’t think I purport to be. I’m not an expert. I simply accessed information, and listened to people, including our staff who have done our basic research, and I convey the basic ideas and options to you.

The first option of quick, mass release of people from isolation, would mean an epidemic, many more people dying, and possibly our health system being overwhelmed. We can’t do that. That means we either need treatment, or a vaccine, or somehow build people’s immunity across the entire nation. A second option, is to keep people in isolation, lockdown, until a vaccine is developed.

We can’t do that for two reasons. Firstly, the emotional and mental health toll would be too high. And secondly, our economy would be slaughtered. There’s a third option, and that is to adopt something like an Australian version of the highly successful strategy used in East Asian nations, especially Taiwan, and latter, South Korea.

That involves isolating the sick, and those who have the virus, and isolating the vulnerable, the aged, and those with compromised immune systems, adding massive screening of healthy people for elevated body temperature, and then testing those with high temperatures, and with other symptoms of the virus. Then those with the virus are sent to isolation.

Those without the virus go back to work, or keep working. The point is that Taiwan has a population of 24 million people, almost the same as Australia, yet has recorded just six fatalities, despite heavy contact with the virus, before Australia, because it is near to China. And their economy had hardly missed a beat. So far, the prime minister and his medical advisors spend their time telling us what has happened, when we need to know what is going to happen next.

The prime minister has not shown us two things, the whole plan, including what happens next, and how long this will continue. The second half of the model seems to be missing. We the people deserve to know, and want to know, the whole story. On what basis is the prime minister spending 300 billion dollars of our taxpayer money?

The prime minister needs to tell us his government’s plan, and the triggers for strategy changes. This builds understanding, trust, and hope. The government does not trust the people. And eventually the people will not trust the government. The government has put parliament, and therefore democracy, in hibernation.

So in my second letter to the prime minister, I asked three sets of questions, on the modelling, the data, and the plan. Some medical specialists are asking, does COVID-19 attack our vascular, our blood circulation, and oxygen absorption system, or our respiratory system? We need to know, honestly. The chances of developing a vaccine against a virus that attacks our respiratory or blood system, that determines our fate.

People have dreamt of vaccines for the common cold. A type of corona vaccine, virus, rather, for a century or more. Yet there is still none. SARS is a coronavirus, and after 17 years intense research and billions of dollars, there’s still no vaccine. Experts say chances of a COVID-19 vaccine are very low. What about treatment, treating people with a cure?

What are the government’s plans to consider using Ivermectin to treat people who have the virus? It’s been a hundred percent successful in laboratory tests at Monash University. Are there any plans to treat people with a proven drug, like the malaria drugs, including hydroxychloroquine, that reportedly is having wonderful results in New York.

In summary, Australians want to know, how long will I be working from home? Or not working, and stuck at home? When can we get back to work and school? When will we be safe from this virus? Politicians won’t solve the COVID-19 problem. Research and science will. Until a vaccine is found, and despite all that we are doing, COVID-19 is still out there, waiting for us.

From what I’ve seen of Australians behaving, as we have in recent weeks, it’s marvellous. And from what I’ve learned from successful strategies overseas, there is a reason for optimism, and real hope. We must, though, continue to be disciplined, and the government must base policies, strategies, and plans, on solid data, on empirical evidence. And share that data accurately and fully, and honestly, with the people.

When this is over, everyday Australians of all backgrounds expect to see, and deserve to be, a healthy, secure people, with a proud, independent Australia once more, that reflects our lifestyle, culture, values, freedoms, democracy, and potential. All people want is a fair go, and governance that we can trust to serve us and work for our country.

If you’re concerned about this issue, please contact your local member of parliament, and get your friends and relatives to contact your local member, and demand to get a fair dinkum explanation, because we all deserve to know.

I’ve spoken on your behalf in the Senate, and I’ve written to the prime minister twice, and will continue to hold the government accountable on your behalf.

This is the third in a series of letters between the Prime Minister and I in regards to COVID-19. You can read my first letter and the Prime Minister’s reply below.

Dear Mr Morrison 

RE: COVID-19 RECOVERY PLAN 

Thank you for your reply dated 14 April to my letter of 25 March 2020

Noting that the government has put Australia’s parliament – and therefore democracy – into hibernation, I now raise questions that would in normal circumstances be asked of Ministers in the Senate or of their departments in Canberra. 

Before doing so I acknowledge again that there is no manual on how to respond to the serious and dynamic health and security crisis now confronting all Australians. I note that although we disagree with some aspects of your government’s COVID-19 financial packages, in the interests of ensuring swift support to people whose lives have been jolted through loss of income we voted to support both packages in full. In doing so, and of necessity, we gave your government an open cheque. 

As a Senator it is my duty to ensure accountability. Firstly, I note that your government and Australians generally can claim success in avoiding the scenario of overwhelmed health care services. Secondly, experience here and overseas is now such that the questions below need to be asked on behalf of the constituents I serve. 

While I empathise with the government’s challenge, people need answers. People are feeling confused, afraid, concerned; some feel lost, grieving for those dying and for our country. Some feel angry. Many are still living in disbelief and plagued with uncertainty. 

People want to know what has to be done. Why it has to be done. How long before it’s over. And, what will be the cost – financial, social, personal, mental and emotional? It is the people who have to repay these big bills of up to around $300 billion to which your government has committed Australian taxpayers. 

People have a right to know the facts, yet your discussion of modelling lacked specifics on the duration of isolation nor the plan and triggers for releasing people. 

A solid plan is fundamental for trust and hope. People expect governments to lead and expect leaders to have a plan based on solid data and facts.

These are questions that I ask on behalf of our constituents: 

1. Modelling 

a) What delayed your government so long before publicly discussing modelling as attempted in your media conference on Tuesday 7 April 2020? 

b) Does your modelling, like that from NZ and the Imperial College of London, show that after the lockdown the virus will still exist in the community and that unrestrained release of people from isolation would lead to an epidemic, unless successful treatments or vaccines are released? 

c) Why did your government not release the modelling at your conference? 

d) Why did your government not discuss the underlying assumptions including infection, transmission and mortality rates? 

e) Why did your government not discuss the variables modelled because without that people can make no meaningful conclusions? 

f) Why did the modellers release the draft version separately from you and not release the model? 

g) Why did your government not disclose and discuss the modellers’ result and various alternative future scenarios that could be the basis for a national plan? 

h) Did your government use the modelling as the basis for its COVID-19 support packages legislation? 

2. National Plan 

a) What is the government’s plan for maintaining health and safety while restoring the economy, and what is the time frame? 

b) On what medical or scientific data do you repeatedly state that people will be isolated in hibernation for six months? 

c) Is the government considering the latest data and facts from nations like Taiwan, and to a lesser extent South Korea, that are highly successful in combatting COVID-19, and if so what is your government learning? 

d) Is your government considering adopting their strategy of isolating the sick and the vulnerable, combined with wider screening of elevated body temperature and more widespread testing of the population for the virus, so that instead of isolating healthy people and destroying livelihoods we can isolate the sick and the vulnerable thereby allowing the healthy to get back to work and restore our economy while protecting lives and livelihoods? 

e) Experts are saying the likelihood of a vaccine for COVID-19 is low because after 17 years no vaccine for SARS, a coronavirus, has been developed despite massive investment. Despite possibly one hundred years of effort no vaccine has been developed for the common cold, another coronavirus. What is your plan for releasing people from isolation before a vaccine is developed? 

f) What is the government’s plan for treatment of people with the virus? Is it considering using hydroxy-chloro-quine, reportedly showing positive results in New York, and Ivermectin being 100% effective in Monash University’s laboratory tests? 

g) What is the plan for mental health issues that experts warn will likely rise as the isolation continues? One of the worst things that can be done to a person is to take their job from them. Humanity needs security, connection, family, and friends. The government’s shutdown is a ticking time bomb. 

3. Data 

a) Some medical specialists have suggested COVID-19 attacks human vascular, blood circulation and oxygen absorption, while other experts claim it attacks the human respiratory system. What is the government’s conclusion? 

b) Are casualties and deaths from influenza and pneumonia, both here and overseas, being reported as being due to COVID-19? 

c) How many people die WITH the virus and how many die FROM the virus? In some nations is the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 inflated? 

d) Data suggests Australia’s testing for the virus is narrowly focussed and well below the world’s best in terms of testing per capita. Why? 

e) Will your government establish a website at which it will openly post the scientific data and basis for its plan and allow public scrutiny – a cornerstone of science? Will it openly post the modelling on which it depends? 

f) To ensure a diversity of medical views and to prevent group-think, will your government establish a fully funded independent scientific team to question and hold accountable the government’s medical advisers? 

When this is over, everyday Australians of all backgrounds expect to see – and deserve to be – a healthy secure people with a proud, independent Australia that reflects our lifestyle, culture, values, freedom, democracy and potential. 

All people want is a fair go and governance that we can all trust to work for our country. What many Australians want, looking beyond our health and financial safety, is to make sure that we leave COVID-19 behind us with the same, or more, freedoms and liberties that we had before. 

Yours Faithfully 

Malcolm Roberts

Senator for Queensland

200416-PM_ltr2

One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts urges Australians to unite under our flag and buy Australian-made and Australian-owned.

“While the COVID 19 crisis reminds us of the importance of supporting Australian-made, it also shows we no longer make many essential goods here on our shores, which become a major security threat,” stated Senator Roberts.

Successive Australian governments have allowed, encouraged and at times driven our manufacturing industry to move off-shore leaving us dependent on overseas countries like China for basic goods.

In his senate speech on 8 April, Senator Roberts stated that Australia’s productive capacity has been smashed under Liberal-National and Labor-Green governments blindly adopting the globalist strategy of “interdependence” that has made us too heavily dependent on foreign sources.

One Nation calls on the Australian Government to immediately prioritise creating an environment where Australian businesses grow and thrive and are not hamstrung by a globalist agenda.

When Australia was in need of urgent medical supplies to treat people with COVID19 we were reliant on suppliers in China rather than having our own thriving manufacturing industry.

Australia’s manufacturing sector has deteriorated over the years with only 6% of GDP coming from manufacturing, down from 30% fifty years ago. 

Senator Roberts implores the Federal Government to remove government-imposed regulations like the self-imposed Paris Agreement, pointless climate regulations, unnecessary over-regulation and other government hurdles and instead encourage our manufacturing industries.

Senator Roberts added, “Our manufacturers have endured a new high in 2019 for electricity input prices, which now averages over 90% higher, almost double, than the prices in 2010. Gas prices have increased nearly 50% over the same ten-year period.”

“Australian energy prices have gone from the cheapest to the most expensive in the world due to climate policies and that is making manufacturing unviable in Australia.”

When the COVID19 virus has passed and we are left to repair a broken economy, we will need to reassess the importance of previous spending commitments, such as billions of dollars wasted in subsidising intermittent wind and solar power to virtue signal to the United Nations.

200416-One-Nation-calls-Australians-to-buy-Australian-made

On 25 March I sent a letter to the PM in regards to COVID 19. You can read that here:

This is the reply I received from the Prime Minister.

Dear Senator

Thank you for your letter of 25 March 2020 about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The priority for the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments is the health and wellbeing of Australians, their livelihoods, their jobs and ensuring that Australia is positioned to emerge strong and resilient.

We are working together as Australians do. We all have a part to play: employers, employees, governments, health workers and every one with social distancing.
From the earliest days, Australia has understood the seriousness of COVID-19.
We quickly established travel bans and scaled up screening on our borders. We evacuated Australians from virus hotspots and set up quarantine facilities.

We funded a $2.4 billion national health response plan to set up more than 100 pop-up clinics, and to provide extra support for those more at risk including the elderly, those with chronic conditions and Indigenous communities.

We have increased funding to public hospitals and aged care, boosted our National Medical Stockpile of essential medicines and masks, and have secured alternative supplies of vital personal protective equipment for our healthcare workers.
At the same time, we are taking action to keep Australians in jobs and businesses in business.

Already we have announced $320 billion in measures across the forward estimates, representing 16.4 per cent of annual GDP.

We are focusing these efforts on those in the frontline – those who will be feeling the first blows of the economic impacts of the coronavirus. Our measures support households including casuals and sole traders, retirees and those on income support. They include doubling the JobSeeker Payment, through the introduction of a temporary coronavirus supplement.

We are providing a historic wage subsidy to around 6 million workers who will receive a flat payment of $1,500 per fortnight through their employer, before tax. The $130 billion temporary JobKeeper Payment scheme will help businesses significantly impacted by COVID-19 with the costs of their employees’ wages so more Australians can retain their jobs and businesses and can restart quickly when the crisis is over. Further detail is available at the Treasury website (www.treasury.gov.au/coronavirus).

We are working to ensure Australia can bounce back stronger than ever once the virus has run its course. As our economy bounces back, so will our Budget.
We can take this action now because we have worked hard to bring the Budget back into balance, to maintain our AAA credit rating and work with State and Ten-itory Governments to provide a world-class health system.

As well, a National Cabinet has been formed with myself, Premiers and Chief Ministers. This is Australia’s first National Cabinet made up of all Australian governments.
I have also publicly reiterated the role that all Australians play. By practising social distancing, maintaining good hygiene practices and looking out for one another we will be able to limit to spread of the virus.

I trust this information will be of use to you.

Yours Sincerely

Scott Morrison

P.S. I strongly disagree with your assessment of the Government’s approach and the comparison made to Italy.  To the contrary our experience more closely follows that in South Korea.

I followed this response with a second letter, which you can read here:

Transcript:

Thank you Senator Keneally, Senator Roberts.

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to discuss our people’s health and safety, the security of our national economy and thirdly, our national economic recovery in the near future and the long term because no one is discussing the key issue, and One Nation has solutions.

I remind people of government’s three primary roles, protect life, protect property and protect freedom. Importantly, in democracies, those governing do so only with the permission of the people governed and those governing are responsible to the people.

I will in this speech discuss a former prime minister who I had respected until I did my research. I want to thank everyone who is caring for us and keeping us safe, including healthcare workers, police, defence, emergency workers and everyone serving others including helping to supply and feed us, electricity generation, cleaners, garbage collection, water supply and many more.

Many of us feel gutted that this year will be the first time Anzac Day public commemorations have been called off. This illustrates the seriousness of the threat we face. Firstly, health and safety, this must be every government’s primary focus.

Now there is no manual on dealing with COVID-19. So while I empathise with government’s challenge, people want answers, people are feeling confused, afraid, concerned, some feel lost, grieving for those dying and grief for our country.

Some feel angry, many are still living in disbelief, why? Because people want to know what has to be done, why it has to be done and how long before it’s over and what will it cost, financial, social, personal, mental, emotional.

Remember, we have to pay these bills. People have a right to know the fair dinkum facts and right now, many people are, like me, in the dark or plagued with uncertainty. Two and a half weeks ago, in this place, I praised the success of East Asian nations in combating COVID-19, particularly Taiwan and South Korea.

Their focus is on people’s health and safety. Both are democracies and government provides strong, clear leadership. The people trust those governments because they used facts, instituted rigorous widespread testing of body temperature and virus infection, relied on sharing data and had solid processes and systems with medical supplies and facilities.

Both those nations quickly arrested the virus and instead of isolating everyone, they quickly and rigorously isolated the infected and the vulnerable, allowing the majority of healthy people to continue working.

This is their lesson to us, acting decisively to make health their first priority, minimised disturbance to their economies. Western nations though have tried to balance health and the economy and as a result, both have been compromised.

Australians are asking serious questions. Why did it take so long for the government to publicly discuss modelling, as it pretended to do so yesterday yet not release the modelling. Why did the modellers release the draught version separately yet not release the model?

Why did the government not discuss the underlying assumptions including infection, transmission and mortality rates? Why did the government not discuss the variables modelled? Without that we can make no conclusions.

Why did the government not disclose the model’s result? Did the government gather data and facts from successful nations like Taiwan and South Korea? And if so, what did it learn? Now modelling is often flawed yet in this case, isn’t failing to get the data or failing to model acceptance of needless deaths?

When did state and federal health ministers last get together to scenario plan the effects and management of a virus pandemic? Have they ever? Have they considered their interaction with border security and who to allow into our country from planes and ships?

Did they involve the hospitals and medical colleges? Data suggests Australia’s testing for the virus is narrow and well below the world’s best per capita. Why is the government’s data on number of cases continually revised with dramatic changes to its graph?

Are casualties and deaths from flu and pneumonia here and overseas being reported as from COVID-19? How many people will die with the virus compared with how many people die from the virus? In some nations, are deaths inflated?

What is the government’s plan for treatment using hydroxychloroquine showing amazing results in New York and elsewhere? And ivermectin being 100% effective in Monash University’s in-vitro tests? What is the plan for mental health issues?

Everyday Australians want to know, how long will I be working from home? When can we get back to work and school? When will we be safe from this virus? I now turn to the Chinese Communist government that harmed the Chinese people and people worldwide.

It hid the outbreak, suppressed the views of the virus and punished the doctors who wanted to inform and prepare the world. That meant the virus spread rapidly around the world. What will it do now to people in poorer countries, Africa, India?

Instead of it protecting its people, the Chinese Communist government neglected, controlled and punished them. Worse, in January, the United Nations’ World Health Organisation spread the communist government’s lies that there is no human to human transmission of the virus.

Then in March, the UN’s World Health Organisation said the time to act was two months earlier in January. The World Health Organisation, gutless, bumbling, incompetent, hopeless, dishonest, inherently corrupt just like the whole UN.

This virus needs to be renamed the Chinese Communist Party UN virus, the Chinese Communist Party and UN need to be held accountable. Compare the Chinese Communist government with that of Taiwan’s democratic government, Taiwan’s 24 million people responded freely and as of today, had just five deaths.

Freedom works, freedom works providing the government serves the people. With freedom comes responsibility and self control, always far superior to imposed control. The communists gave us the virus, democratic Taiwan gave us medical equipment.

Now let’s turn to our fragile economy. People expect government to lead and expect leaders to have a plan based on solid data and facts. Economies are living organisms comprised of families, economies depend on human interaction.

Isolate people and economies wither. So what is the plan for bringing back our economy? What are the government’s trigger points for changing strategy from isolating everyone to wider testing and then isolating only the sick and vulnerable so the healthy majority can return to interacting, producing, exchanging, getting back to work like Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore?

The government shutdown is a ticking time bomb. It is necessary but it is a ticking time bomb. Humanity needs security, connection, family, friends. The worst thing we can do to a person after all is take their job off them.

I note now, for now rather that this bill needs to be structured as an open cheque to the government to ensure the flexibility to support people. Thirdly, this crisis has highlighted a huge gap in our country’s security.

Shortages of critical equipment like basic medical supplies, worse, an inability to manufacture medical equipment, cars, many goods that we once made ourselves are now imported, why? Because the Whitlam Labor government signed the UN’s Lima declaration in 1975 and the Fraser Liberal National’s government ratified it the very next year to transfer manufacturing to third world countries.

Worse still, an inability in Australia to grow our own food. We were exporters of basic food commodities like rice and wheat, now we cannot get enough rice and due to the virus, Vietnam has blocked exports for us to ensure supply for its own people.

Durum wheat for pasta is in shortage, why? Because the Howard government under the guidance of Liberal Senator Robert Hill, National’s Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson and Liberal Prime Minister John Howard in 1996 stole farmers inalienable rights to use the land they bought.

And to avoid paying compensation, colluded with Queensland Nationals’ premier Rob Burbidge and later Labour’s premier Peter BD and with New South Wales Labour’s state minister Bob Carr, why? For the Howard government to comply with the UN’s Kyoto Protocol.

The UN, let’s get it out and who buys our farms? The Chinese Communist government despite banning Australians from buying Chinese properties. Water, what about water?

Farmers lost their water as a result of the Turnbull Howard Water Act of 2007 that according to world renowned John Briscoe, took the world’s best national water policy under the Murray-Darling Basin Commission and made it the worst under the Turnbull Howard Murray-Darling Basin Authority. How?

Infecting it with politics, UN rules and regulations. The UN exit, this week, yet another farmer Tanya Ginns in New South Wales asked, please help us, help her against the government, the global corporates, the UN.

Our own farmers asking for help against the government so she and her family can produce food for our people. And then energy, never before have humans materially advanced so quickly as in the last 170 years and it was due to ever decreasing real prices of energy, electricity, oil and gas.

The miracle that raised living standards gave us independence from weather and eliminated famines. It gave us longer, healthier, safer, easier, more productive, more comfortable and secure lifestyles.

We are the world’s second largest exporter of coal and largest exporter of liquefied natural gas yet we now have high domestic energy costs. In just a few decades, we went from the world’s cheapest electricity, thanks to our clean high energy coal to the world’s most expensive electricity, thanks to the Howard government policies based on the UN lies and fraud.

Eight years after John Howard was booted from office, he admitted in Britain, that on climate science, he was agnostic. He had no science yet he destroyed all these industries. We now export our coal to China so it can produce cheap electricity because China sensibly uses hydro, coal and nuclear being the cheapest forms of electricity generation.

The Chinese already produce about eight times more coal than does Australia entirely and they’re rapidly increasing their production. India is furiously increasing its production, why? Because they know cheap energy is the key to productivity and productivity is the key to wealth generation and wealth generation is the key to raising everyone’s living standards.

At the same time, China exports wind turbines and solar panels to us that wreck our environment and steal our precious farmland. We subsidise Chinese companies to install these inefficient monstrosities that raise our electricity costs, destroy reliability of supply and drive our manufacturers and jobs overseas, why?

In our renewal plans, this must be reviewed and dumped. Mind you, it provides entertainment with Barnaby Joyce and Senator Canavan first speaking clearly as climate sceptics, then contorting and converting to speaking for the UN’s climate rort and now, now back-flipping to copy One Nation’s stance.

Yet although they now speak like us, they still vote like Trent Zimmerman, Zali Steggall and the Greens. Despite the recent droughts, Despite the recent drought, farmers with water could not afford to pay for electricity to pump irrigation water to grow fodder in a drought because of electricity prices.

China and the UN are doing this, exit the UN. Seafood, we have the world’s largest continental shellfishing zone yet import almost three quarters of the seafood we consume, why?

Because we have 36% of the world’s marine parks that previous ministers like Labor’s Mr. Tony Burke and Liberal Senator Robert Hill handed to the UN as World Heritage areas, all now managed under UN rules and who is our largest supply of seafood imported by?

China with its tiny coastline and 56 times more mouths to feed compared to ours, China and the UN, exit the UN. In Queensland, we have 31 major federal and state policies gutting farming and as Charleville farmer, Dan McDonald says, “With every farm input now completely under regulatory control, farming is nationalised.”

We have lost our food security, our manufacturing, our farmers’ land use, our water, our energy security. We have lost our productive capacity, our ability to produce, we have lost our economic resilience, our ability to rebound all to globalism in the name of interdependency.

The corporate elites benefiting from our bureaucrats’ gift of farming land and water and benefit from owning Chinese manufacturing. Interdependency is a con, it means we are dependent on others, we are dependent.

This virus crisis is exposing a huge gap in our security from face masks to food to loss of our independence. We voters have allowed our government since the formation of the UN, especially since 1996 to sacrifice our country’s productive capacity, our economic resilience, our economic independence and security.

Did you elect UN bureaucrats to be in charge? I didn’t, our national debt now is around 600 billion, Queensland’s around 90 billion before this package. Members of parliament and senior federal public servants need to share the burden, stop the perks like flying business class, cut our superannuation rate, reject or defer salary increases.

Let’s look to the future. What will the world look like after the Prime Minister’s quaintly named six-month hibernation? In just three to four months, what will people be doing? Will people emerge from hibernation?

When we look around, will we as a nation feel supported, excited or depleted, hungry and angry? We need two plans, one for now and one for bringing back our productive capacity and economic resilience.

One Nation will return with their detailed analysis. When this is over, though, everyday Australians of all backgrounds expect to see and deserve to be a healthy, secure people with a proud, independent Australia that reflects our lifestyle, culture, values, freedom, democracy and potential. All people want is a fair go and governance we can trust to work for our country. Thank you Madam Deputy President.

Transcript:

Thank you Mr President. I seek to make a statement in response to the Minister’s statement. We acknowledge that there is no manual for dealing with this virus, and we empathise with the government’s challenge.

That is though, all the more reason for the government to openly share data, future projections, and information with the people. As pressures mount regarding personal security, as well as emotionally and financially on people across our nation, any shortage of data is being seen as an absence of trust from the government in the people.

And, that will make it difficult for Australians to in turn, trust government and the parliament. Government trust in the people and honesty, will be met with trust from the people.

One Nation would also like at this time, to thank everyone who is caring for us, and keeping us safe, including healthcare workers, police, defence, emergency workers, and everyone serving others, including helping to supply and feed us, teach our children, electricity generation, garbage collection, cleaning, water supply, and many more.

People keeping services working for us all. COVID-19 Mr President, has exposed us as severely lacking in our current economic and industrial structures, the productive capacity and economic resilience, that were once part of Australian culture and history.

We need to take this opportunity to take stock, and then rebuild our society on the values, systems and cultures that ensure a return to personal enterprise, instead of the creeping dead hand and suffocating blanket of a large, and ever-growing central government.

History shows that the secret of human happiness and human progress is nothing new, and has been discovered, lost, and rediscovered for millennia, and more recently, lost in our country.

We need to bring back Australia’s economic sovereignty, productive capacity and economic resilience, based on restoring personal enterprise and compliance with our Constitution, that enshrines competitive Federalism and individual liberty.

We all need, as representatives of the people, and servants to the people, to ensure the people’s government is held accountable for what it does, and does not do during this emergency. We are giving the government a blank check, and rightly so, because there are many uncertainties in this.

There’s such a complex system that we are already trying to amend. But Ministers have the power to make these changes through regulations. And, that is given to ensure that cracks in the legislation are closed quickly, to ensure people are covered fairly, right across our country.

It is a blank check. But, we must do our jobs as Senators to make sure that we review that and the progress of it. What many Australians, looking beyond our health and financial safety want, is to make sure that we leave COVID-19 behind us with better freedoms and liberties, and a stronger, freer economy than before. Thank you, Mr President.

Ben:

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

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

Malcom Roberts:

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

Ben:

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

Malcom Roberts:

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

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

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

Ben:

Yeah, sure.

Malcom Roberts:

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

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

Ben:

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

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

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

Malcom Roberts:

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

Ben:

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

Malcom Roberts:

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

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

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

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

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

Ben:

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

Malcom Roberts:

And angry.

Ben:

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

Malcom Roberts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ben:

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

Malcom Roberts:

Anytime, Ben.

Ben:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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