One Nation were extremely proud to launch their Victorian candidates in front of the Rebel News cameras.
Rebel News, many may remember, aligned themselves with the Freedom Movement in Victoria during the darkest days of the Daniel Andrews’ Labor regime.
While mainstream broadcasters took hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars for Covid vaccine advertising and government assistance during the lockdowns – promoting unquestioned government propaganda, actively distorting truth, and discouraging critical safety questions – Rebel News stood with protesters as rubber bullets, pepper spray, and unforgivably heavy-handed policing intimidated people out of their rights. Their independent cameraman, Rukshan Fernando, provided an eternal record of government abuses of power in an era where many leaders would prefer the whole thing be swept aside and buried.
Transparency?
Not in a world where the state press takes over a billion dollars a year and media empires beg and scrape at the Treasury door for tax dollars while the internet rises up to replace them.
One Nation firmly supports the ‘free press’ as a pillar of democracy.
The question is – which press are actually ‘free’?
You decide…
In my opinion, the news channel that shared viral footage of a pregnant woman being handcuffed, beachgoers surrounded by armed officers, and pensioners being wrestled to the ground over mask violations, was doing its job. For this, they received door-knocks from police and thinly-veiled threats.
When One Nation is asked why it has given priority to independent media over The Guardian, ABC, and others – the reason should be obvious.
We reward those who upheld democracy and passed Australia’s first real test against tyranny since the war years.
Covid is important, because it was during this age of hysteria and sanctimonious propaganda that MSM died.
It wasn’t only a lesson about the need to reform our medical institutions and international oversight – it was a Litmus test on the relationship between the press and Parliament.
One that, MSM failed.
Qualified journalists, who have no excuse, presented obvious failures of logic and false claims from politicians as ‘fact’ – and persecuted anyone who dared to challenge them. Daily, they used their platforms and position of privilege, authority, and trust to encourage a culture of bullying and snitching between friends, family, and colleagues.
Had the press acted responsibly, politicians would not have been able to destroy so many Australian lives and livelihoods.
Instead, they shamelessly took the money.
Media empires coerced and threatened their own staff.
And now they want to re-write the record and pretend they were ‘always sceptical’.
What rot.
What lies.
The same journalists who now refer to me as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ went all-in on the most damaging lies of the Fauci-driven pandemic response. Subsequent hearings and releases from the US have shown how misguided this approach was.
How many people were harmed? We may never know – short of a true Royal Commission.
The scars of that time, however, live on as legislation with sunset clauses and exceptional emergency powers Parliament was never meant to have.
A One Nation government will seek to amend these injustices and return a sense of normality to our nation.
In the meantime, Pauline Hanson has put some of the worst behaved media networks and publications on notice.
Those who abused their position by fabricating outrage and misrepresenting One Nation in the past have been disinvited from high-profile events. And, like toddlers throwing a tantrum, they have stomped around and whinged about how ‘unfair’ it is that they were ‘banned’.
It’s a concern these politicians and competing media networks never extended to Rebel News or other independent conservative journalists who have been locked out of election press tours. Nor did they mind when the government sent orders to Silicon Valley to have their posts removed from social media.
My view is that The Guardian, ABC, and others are not genuinely distraught about the so-called ‘free’ press, rather they’re miffed about no longer holding a privileged position in the information economy.
Australians are not being denied access to One Nation, its policies, or its candidates.
Of all the political parties operating in this country, One Nation was the first to fully embrace social media and engage meaningfully with citizens. The ‘major’ parties rarely do this outside the lead-up to the election where they spend a few short weeks pretending to care about voters and then promptly slam the doors shut on public conversation.
I would argue that the cosy relationship enjoyed between the ‘major’ parties and legacy media networks, form the basis of an undemocratic system.
Why don’t they talk about the shadow bans and unspoken blacklists employed by networks where elected politicians are excluded from public discourse?
Media curates whose voices you hear.
They pick and choose who to exclude based on ratings, clicks, and personal bias.
Worse, for the ‘friendly’ politicians who appear daily, the comfy, pre-scripted questions and lack of proper questioning leaves me asking, why bother inviting them onto the screen? Media may as well print their press releases and move on.
Today’s media landscape looks nothing like the ‘rough and tumble’ debates of last century where politicians were perfectly capable of facing questions about their policies.
While One Nation puts an extraordinary amount of effort into each policy – and remains happy to answer detailed questions or even make adjustments following public feedback – you’re hard-pressed to find more than a few campaign lines embossed on professional (yet ideologically sparse) press releases from the other parties.
Given this, it does not surprise me that during the hysterical meltdown a few weeks ago, where I became the favourite chew toy of editors (who should be a lot more careful with their fact-checking and damaging false accusations), they took particular offence at my appearance on podcasts.
We’re always hearing Labor and the Coalition complain about Australians falling into ‘dangerous echo chambers online’. Ignoring that MSM is itself a dangerous echo chamber – the solution from the major parties appears to be to ban, restrict, or demonetise online discussions.
The whole of modern history tells us this approach is the least likely to change people’s minds or encourage a return to rational thought.
Instead, the lesson of Western Enlightenment has always been to err on the side of more conversation.
To have debates.
To talk to people whose views differ.
To challenge both yourself and others.
To wade into unfamiliar rooms and have difficult discussions.
How else can a politician hope to find out why it is that these voters have come to their views?
And so yes, I have made a point of going on many podcasts. Far more than most of my peers. I speak to everyone – from the largest and most controversial podcasters in America to start-up Australian journalists trying to break into the market. I’ve been on podcasts that host a wide range of topics – everything from forums on energy and its future, discussions about freedom of speech, I speak to medical professionals, I’ve spoken to economic professionals, Constitutional experts, Defence and Veterans podcasts, and conversations about migration. Most Fridays I speak directly to citizens about their concerns and catch people up with what’s going on in Parliament.
My peers on the other side of the blue, green, and red fence can scorn all they like – none of them are changing minds on their Insiders love-in.
The childish response to my record of sharing public discourse reveals how threatened media and politicians are by the simple act of talking outside the Canberra Bubble. Or should we say, safe space?
Last week, my critics were thoroughly embarrassed.
The ABC callously and wrongly ridiculed a discussion I had regarding the possibility that Covid vaccines could have an impact on miscarriages calling it a ‘debunked conspiracy theory’.
Referring to these as ‘unreported’ (meaning the ABC weren’t paying attention) livestream conversations with ‘anti-vax mandate activists’.
Well, yes, we still take the position that mandated Covid vaccination, on threat of job loss and lock-outs, was morally wrong and reprehensible. This is a mainstream view in hindsight, we might remind the ABC… The article continued to promote ‘anti-vaccine mandate’ as if it were a bad thing.
This was during the early days where the exact numbers and data were not known. It was a conversation about whether a risk to pregnant women existed at a time when women were being denied proper risk assessment. These women were contacting our office. They felt as if they were being lied to by authorities.
Well, we were right to ask questions. We were right to have discussions. And we were right to raise the alarm on possible harm to pregnant women.
Dr Anthony Fauci’s 2021 texts, revealed by Donald Trump’s executive order, show there was a discussion about ‘weigh[ing] the potential risks and benefits’ regarding pregnant women taking Covid vaccines.
Two vaccines in the US, Pfizer and Moderna, had been granted emergency use while data was still being collected on pregnant women – in other words, they didn’t know the risk profile.
These texts reveal that Fauci was aware of ‘fevers’ and ‘cytokine storms’ occurring in patients after the second dose which ‘theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester’. To which other experts replied, ‘Good point.’
The Health and Human Services Department in the US no longer recommends these vaccines for pregnant women or healthy children.
Our position has always been transparency. This means freedom for doctors and medical professionals to voice their concern without fear of losing their jobs – and freedom for Australians to have access to honest medical information, not ‘risk-assessments’ decided in the dark by foreign bodies and boards that we did not elect.
It is the ABC who failed and it is the ABC who should apologise for that failure to the Australian people.
Politicians such as myself were elected to have these conversations when others cannot, because we have additional protection. It’s shocking that Australia has reached a point where seeking data and questioning ‘authority’ has become an excuse for the ‘trusted’ media to whip themselves into a frenzy.
Perhaps if they asked more questions, they wouldn’t need taxpayer dollars or legislative assistance to survive.
Who are the REAL ‘free press’? by Senator Malcolm Roberts
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Free-Speech.jpg?fit=1238%2C1238&ssl=112381238Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-08-17 10:48:522026-08-17 10:48:59Who Are the REAL ‘Free Press’?
This bill is a licence to arrest dissidents, halt debate, and silence political opposition.
On December 14, 2025 – an Islamic terror attack occurred in Australia.
Two individuals associated with the foreign ISIS group, one of whom ASIO was supposedly ‘watching’, went to an Australian beach and started murdering innocent people.
On Australian soil. A massacre of innocent people.
These individuals and their anti-human murderous intent are presumed to be products of an Islamic theocratic ideology which is part of a network of militant Islamic groups that engage in a combination of regional conflicts, power struggles, and the global act of intifada in which they seek to spread Islam ‘by the Sword’ and subjugate the peoples and religions of the world.
Islamic terror is not a response to the behaviour of the Australian people. Indeed, it has been forming caliphates for over 1,400 years. To make any insinuation that Australians and their speech are somehow to blame is an insult to rational thought.
These statements about Islam and its history of creating violent militancy are factual statements that will no doubt become criminal hate speech if the Prime Minister and his government are allowed to shamelessly exploit the Bondi Islamic terror attack.
As we speak, the Prime Minister and his ministers are busy creating a political firestorm to fabricate the feeling of existential terror – the purpose is to rush people.
To panic people.
To pass the single, most dangerous piece of legislation this nation has ever seen.
An Islamic terror attack took place, and yet this omnibus bill doesn’t have the guts to name the ideological perpetrator. Look at it. Where is the call to identify radical Islam?
Where does it cite the ideology that is the chief cause of fear among Australians?
Australians are smarter than that. Go online – before social media is banned – and listen to what people are saying. They spotted the oversight immediately.
The title of this bill is a real-time rewriting of the narrative. The Prime Minister has repackaged Islamic terror as some sort of vague antisemitism and the impossible-to-define ‘hate speech’.
This matters because Islamic terror is not a reaction to criticism of Islam, criticism of mass migration, support of Australia’s Western heritage, our Christian foundation, our demands for women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, or other Western-centric thought.
Nor do French satirical cartoons or Salman Rushdie’s literary works cause Islamic terror.
Islamic terror exists to oppress, to kill, and to convert.
Enacting ruthless, politically motivated censorship against the Australian people – and specifically conservative Australians – will not stop a single Islamic terror attack.
Let me repeat – this bill will not stop a single Islamic terror attack.
Islamic terror’s hatred – its antisemitism – its desire to ‘behead the infidels’ – which was shouted on the streets of Sydney ten years ago and with no response from authorities, politicians, or this Parliament – stems from its radicalised religious belief that is an ideology for structuring society.
An inhuman, uncivilised society.
Shutting up Australians and interfering with what should be the sacred, unassailable right to free speech and political communication – is not an act of protection. It is an act of aggression.
The Australian people asked you, Prime Minister, to stop Islamic terror. To deport the Islamic hate preachers. To find out why people on an ASIO watchlist had access to firearms. To find out why people on an ASIO watchlist were able to travel to known Islamic terror training areas.
They want to know why your government has not proscribed various known Islamic hate groups despite our allies doing so. They want to know why your government brought back female members of the Islamic State terror group despite the community telling you no.
And why your minister lied to cover up the ISIS brides’ return as it was being planned – and while it was underway.
They want to know why people holding Jewish and Australians flags are routinely arrested while those carrying Hamas, Hezbollah, and ISIS flags are not.
They want to know why current and former members of government marched beneath a portrait of the Ayatollah whose Iranian regime serves as the heart of Islamic terror – exporting it to the world including Australia.
And cruelly treats its own citizens.
Why are you, Prime Minister, presenting to us this omnibus bill which fails – catastrophically – to confine itself to the religious ideology that is murdering Australians, attacking the Jewish community, and spreading hate and violence in our country?
You and your government were given a very specific and narrow request from the people of Australia: get the Islamic terrorists out of this country or put them in jail.
What you have done instead is sloppily and dangerously draft an astonishingly extensive omnibus bill – which must be the work of months, not weeks – to make it nearly impossible for the average Australian to voice their God-given dissent, concern, and disgust at various policies and cultural changes to our country.
It is the codification of blasphemy known under the new name, ‘Islamophobia’.
As the late, great, left-wing figure Christopher Hitchens said: ‘Islamophobia is a word created by fascists, used by cowards, to manipulate morons. Resist it, while you still can.’
I look around and think how far the left have fallen.
This bill is, without question, without any doubt, an abuse of Parliament’s power.
It’s a licence to arrest dissidents, halt debate, and silence political opposition the likes of which we have not seen in a hundred years.
The Prime Minister hopes that obstructing the Parliamentary process with grief and fear will be his means for creating a moral panic and that my fellow Senators will act rashly.
This bill extends the victims of the Bondi Islamic terror attack to all the people of our nation.
If this bill is passed, those who voted in favour will be betraying everything our ancestors built, everything they believed in, and slamming the door to democracy.
We make a tragedy worse – we multiply the fear – when government puts into law a document expressly PROTECTING the agents of Islamic terror and jails the Australians who try to warn against it.
This bill is the opposite of what the Australian people asked members of Parliament to do.
I believe my role is as a servant to the people of Australia. I was elected to the Senate to help shape the law and to serve Australians and to serve Australia – not to expand the reach of government into the realms of petty censorship.
After all, was it not the Senate that censured my Party Leader, Pauline Hanson, for wearing a burqa to warn that we were sleep-walking into radical Islamic terror? Two weeks later, her warnings were made real and yet she is denied a place to vote on the very issue for which she was silenced.
This bill must be voted down – in its entirety – and re-written to serve the true purpose for which it was intended: to stop Islamic terror.
It should be renamed the Combatting Islamic Terror and Hate Preachers Bill – or nothing.
As many have pointed out, our existing laws were sufficient to stop the previous terror attacks, to deport hate preachers, to disband terror networks, and arrest those who march in support of terror groups.
And yet we do NOT use those laws.
Why? Are police afraid to arrest Islamic terrorists? Are courts afraid to convict? Is the Labor government afraid of the next election?
We are not at the limit of the law – so why are we sitting here drafting new ones?
If the old ones are not used to combat Islamic terror – what makes anyone think the news ones will be?
It is far more likely – and I put this to the Australian people – that by Australia Day, it will still be acceptable to state and federal governments for demonstrators to break the law and walk under the Hamas-aligned pro-Palestine banner shouting the genocidal ‘from the river to the sea’ – while it will be illegal, or at least dangerous, to fly the Australian flag and call for an end to mass migration.
Come on. Let’s face truth and put Australians’ safety first.
Enacting ruthless, politically motivated censorship against the Australian people – and specifically conservative Australians – will not stop a single Islamic terror attack.
Say its name, Albanese: Islamic terror by Senator Malcolm Roberts
This bill is a licence to arrest dissidents, halt debate, and silence political opposition
Why Pauline Hanson was censured and our Bill – silenced.
They called it ‘a stunt’.
They being the hypocritical globalists in the Senate, the media mouthpieces waiting at the doors, and the predatory activists desperate for something to be outraged about.
The stunt being Senator Pauline Hanson’s decision to wear a burqa in the Chamber, which has brought the suffocation of our democracy to the public’s attention.
Since being delivered a majority – despite the lowest primary vote in history – Labor has made little effort to maintain Parliament’s veneer of debate.
Their deals with the Greens have allowed Bills to be rushed into law. Dissent is silenced by shuffling One Nation speakers to the bottom of the list and then cutting the speeches right before One Nation were about to speak – as happened to us on the controversial Environmental Protection and Reform Bill. Inquisitions are being staged where ‘concern for truth and safety’ are brandished as a way to enforce censorship.
Rapidly, Parliament has devolved into a protection racket for the worst policy imaginable.
When democracy is denied, ‘stunts’ become the best way to signal the alarm.
Big state politics thrives on bureaucracy. Its defenders pretend their air of ‘superiority’ and ‘maturity’ equals sensible policy when – really – they are performing the same role as a million pages of bureaucratic bullshit holding down the truth.
Boredom, bureaucracy, and silence. That is how democracy dies.
Politics was never meant to perform with the mannerisms of a hospital coffee shop or library foyer.
The Senate was not envisioned as a stuffy room.
When we consider political speeches that changed the world, they were not monologues in praise of moderation. They were brave. Indeed, the moment that won Donald Trump the election was when he rose from the stage, fist raised, shouting, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’
‘In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.’ – George Orwell
‘Truth’ is exactly what Pauline Hanson was seeking.
When a Muslim woman is forced – either by her family, society, or self-imposed culture – to cover herself in a piece of black a cloth banned in over 20 countries, she is invisible.
When a Western woman with red hair and a knee-length dress does the same, the oppression is instantly visible. It is uncomfortable. We see ourselves – the West – treading the edge of religious oppression.
Wearing the burqa in the Senate was an act of truth-telling.
‘Truth’ that lends weight to the lie that Islam is a purely neutral force in the West.
Like most religions, it has extreme edges. This intense variation of Islam is the largest perpetrator of global terror. It runs slave trades in its conquered provinces where Yazidi women are kept as prisoners. It subverts the political systems of its host country, running parallel Sharia court systems and strong – unwritten – cultural laws that run contrary to the accepted customs of the local population. It marries little girls to old men overseas (who they are often related to). It compels relatives to murder young women who fall in love with the wrong man under the false banner of ‘honour’. And it denies the hard-earned rights of women in the West to autonomy by enforcing a type of garment used to subjugate women.
This is what Australians thought about when black robes concealed one of the most recognisable faces in Australian politics.
The Senate refused the debate and threw Pauline Hanson out with screams of ‘racism’ because no one standing opposite could begin a debate – let alone win one.
Forgotten by the press is that this bill was also about security.
It was about banning a range of face coverings – not just the burqa. It included Antifa rioters concealing their identity, balaclavas which have become a symbol of fear on the streets of Melbourne, and those who hide their face while burning the Australian flag. If the debate had been allowed, the public would have seen that this bill was bigger than burqa.
When Pauline Hanson made a similar point in 2017, politicians controlled the press.
They were perfectly capable of fabricating outrage by reprinting copies of the same header over every broadsheet. There was a consensus within the Establishment. A pact to protect ‘multiculturalism’ over the far more sensible policy of assimilation.
Social media existed, however it was owned wall-to-wall by Democrat-leaning Silicon Valley entities and sometimes part-owned by Saudi figures.
Today, things are different. Elon Musk’s purchase of X might not be perfect, but its alignment with free speech principles has allowed the people of Australia to have a say on the burqa.
To the media’s shock, they agree with Pauline Hanson.
They probably agreed with her the first time too.
Not only did Australians agree, they were furious at the behaviour of the Senate for first stifling debate and then throwing Senator Hanson out.
Even conservative members of the Liberal and National parties – no doubt believing their own press from 2017 – were caught off guard when voters criticised them for censuring Senator Hanson.
A note to the Liberals: you cannot praise Scott Morrison for his coal stunt and then condemn Senator Hanson. Nor is it advisable to follow up the next day with a stunt of your own, waving bits of paper behind Sussan Ley to mock Labor for their power prices.
As usual, it is one rule for the Lib-Lab uniparty and another for One Nation.
It is evident that ‘stunts’ themselves are not a problem – it was the topic of the burqa they feared.
Voters are smart. They know something is wrong.
We fought too hard for our culture and our values to weather this moral descent without complaint.
Young people are coming to One Nation because they see this cultural shift in the streets they walk every day. The Canberra Bubble never truly sees what’s happening to Australia except through the sanitised fantasy of outraged activists.
One Nation will not abandon the women of Australia, the people who fled here for safety, or those whose families built this nation from the ground up.
And we will not sit politely while the safety of Australians is put at risk.
Even if the Senate throws us out a thousand times, we will remain, because you elected us to serve you, not those in the Chamber.
Bigger than the burqa by Senator Malcolm Roberts
Why Pauline Hanson was censured and our bill – silenced.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/b69d5c74-8e91-4b3f-9e45-f7742d71a2bd_1494x1037.jpg?fit=1494%2C1037&ssl=110371494Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2025-12-03 18:10:072025-12-03 18:17:02Bigger than the Burqa
How ‘child safety’ and ‘mass migration’ is used as cover for control.
Last weekend, UK streets filled with thousands of people opposing Digital ID. The rally was prompted by their Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, declaring that Digital ID would be made mandatory by 2029.
His excuse?
Digital ID stops illegal migrants from working.
It was a claim that no one, not even left-leaning TV broadcasters, believed. Keir Starmer was grilled for days on end and never managed to make a single coherent argument about why Digital ID would ‘solve’ any of the major problems facing the UK.
Digital ID has no ability to stop the zodiacs full of illegal migrants washing up on British beaches. Nor can it resurrect the manufacturing industry and give desperate working-class towns back their industries which have been gutted by Net Zero policy. It also won’t stop their Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, threatening to raise income taxes on the poorest of Brits.
…sounds like Australia.
What Digital ID might do is allow the government to control what people think, write, and say online.
Indeed, many joke that you’re more likely to be jailed in the UK for political speech than serious criminal activity. Currently, the UK is making more than 30 arrests per day for ‘offensive social media posts’ and over 12,000 across the year.
The bulk of these offences relate to politically-contested ideas that ‘offend’ people.
It is much the same in Australia where high-profile takedown notices show no attempt to apply an equal level of ‘safety’. The stabbing of a religious figure in Australia and the murder of a woman in the US were targeted for censorship by the eSafety Commissioner, although not thousands of violent images and video coming out of foreign accounts aimed at radicalising Australian users.
We believe it is undeniable that politics plays a role in digital censorship and that destroying privacy will only make people more afraid to speak their minds.
Just as ‘child safety’ was used to implement wide-spread social media censorship, many rightly fear that Digital ID will give the government excessive visibility and control over the actions of citizens.
Privacy was a valued asset in democracy because it was recognised as necessary to limit the power of government.
Suspicions are raised, for example, when official UK Labour press releases started calling Digital ID ‘a boarding pass to government’.
As the director of civil liberties group Big Brother Watch said:
‘[Digital ID] is fast becoming a digital permit required to live our everyday lives. Starmer has sold his Orwellian Digital ID scheme to the public on the lie that it will only be used to stop illegal working but now the truth, buried in the small print, is becoming clear. We now know that Digital IDs could be the backbone of a surveillance state and used for everything from tax and pensions to banking and education. The prospects of enrolling even children into this sprawling biometric system is sinister, unjustified, and prompts the chilling question of just what he thinks ID will be used for in the future.’
Today, politicians are exploiting public fears – Covid, terrorism, migration, crime, child safety – to coerce citizens into giving up essential privacy protections.
‘If you accept Digital ID now, it may be the last real choice you ever make.’ – UK protest sign
‘The systems involved are profoundly dangerous to the privacy and fundamental freedoms of the British people,’ said Sir David Davis.
Digital ID is the very definition of ‘mission creep’ where earlier calls to online safety and an upgrade to ailing government computer systems has been jumped on by data-hungry entities within the government.
The UK have used mass migration as their excuse – what of Australia? Our Labor-Liberal uniparty has decided to use children.
As we approach the December Under 16 social media ban, the widespread implementation of Digital ID is beginning to take effect.
Already, social media companies are taking steps to verify the identity and age of users – a necessary step if they are to avoid the crippling fines proposed by the Labor government.
Regardless of the specifics for each platform, the escalation of ID verification and near-total collapse of anonymity online has changed the relationship citizens have with the online world and – perhaps – the reach of the law.
Anonymity online has been used as a protection for political speech.
Australians have used their online accounts to add to the digital political conversation without fear that their employer might sack or demote them for something as simple as disagreeing with ‘pronouns’ or ‘Net Zero’.
This is necessary, given the rise of ‘Woke’ puritanical speech obsessions implemented by many employers.
The use of Digital ID and other forms of verification dramatically increases the risk for those Australians who wish to continue engaging politically.
We have seen how frequent data hacks have become and there is now a real possibility that people might be blackmailed for what they say.
Gmail confirmed that 7 million of its email accounts had been compromised. (People often use email to verify their identity for social media.) This was part of the enormous data link that involved 183 million accounts across Google and Apple. Earlier this month, Discord reported its proof-of-age ID data had been breached. These are the very same pieces of sensitive personal information that government wants all social media companies to collect.
Proof-of-age ID data is some of the most sensitive and can include driver’s licence or passport.
Forcing this data into the hands of more organisations is a public safety and privacy issue that has not been properly considered by the government as it rushed into so-called ‘child safety’ protections.
The only reason Discord was holding this proof-of-age data was, as they state, to satisfy UK and Australian age verification laws.
According to Proton, ‘Typically, Discord required a user’s selfie and then used software to scan the photo and estimate their age. Discord would then delete the photo at the end of the process. The system that was allegedly hacked was part of its appeals process.’
Essentially, when the photographs failed to correctly guess an age, users could back up their claim with government ID.
Everyone is talking about the Discord hack because it is a warning – a real-world ramification of rushed age verification laws that, without explicitly stating, require the widespread use of Digital ID.
Discord stresses it was only ‘a limited number of users’ except this reportedly equates to 70,000. That is a lot of people left vulnerable from information that never should have been surrendered.
It’s this under-handed spread of Digital ID via online safety rules that deeply concerns us.
Effectively, adults are being told that if they want to keep engaging online, they have to sign up to some form of Digital ID. We are social creatures. We have friendship groups online. Australian businesses rely on social media to operate and compete. Interfering in this space turns Digital ID from ‘optional’ into a heavily coerced requirement.
It’s like saying the Covid vaccines were ‘optional’.
Optional … but the government will ruin your life if you say no.
Digital ID spreads across the West by Senator Malcolm Roberts
How ‘child safety’ and ‘mass migration’ is used as cover for control
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Digital-ID.jpg?fit=2218%2C1190&ssl=111902218Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2025-10-30 07:32:202025-10-30 07:32:37Digital ID Spreads Across the West
This is not a balanced report – it’s one-sided propaganda!
I want to share something very important with you – my response to the Islamophobia report which was commissioned by the Albanese government and produced by the Special Envoy to ‘Combat Islamophobia’ over a three-year period.
The author, Mr Malik Aftab, is a United Nations Alliance of Civilisations ‘Global Expert’ on Muslim Affairs.
For many reasons, the report is a frustrating body of work that fundamentally fails to explain why Australians may hold views critical of Islam.
The report does not acknowledge the failings of Islam to integrate with Western society. In particular, there is no discussion on Sharia Law cited by Australia’s allies as being of significant concern for the continuation of civil and human rights for women and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Australians are naturally protective of their legal progress toward making the country a world leader in rights and first-world ideals.
When a culture arrives on our shores whose core religious beliefs, or even cultural interpretation, threaten these advancements – there will be pushback to ensure that society is protected from a regression of rights.
Politicians owe minority groups and vulnerable people protection from imported ideas. After all, even the United Nations acknowledges the large gap between the human rights of the Islamic world compared to that of Australia.
We will not go backwards and undo our civil rights movements to accommodate the feelings of newly arrived migrants who made a choice to enter this beautiful country.
This, as they say, is not a negotiation.
Australia will not be commanded to re-write its moral core based upon hastily defined ‘phobias’ because of cultural disagreement.
The report also complains about the negative impact on Muslim communities due to counter terrorism laws following September 11. This is handwaving. Islam is the largest perpetrator of terror across the world. The ever-present threat of such attacks has resulted in the degradation of our freedoms and innocence of Australia. Remember a time when Christmas markets didn’t need the protection of bollards to stop cars driving into people?
It is not the fault of Australian citizens that violence is being conducted in the name of Islam by both lone wolves and well-funded groups attached to state entities such as Iran. Australians do not have a ‘phobia’ toward Sikhs, Jews, or Buddhists as would be the case if the phobia was rooted in racism. Islam is responsible for its reputation.
Look to Europe, where children are butchered and religious figures beheaded in broad daylight.
In July 2005, four Islamic terrorists attacked London resulting in the murder of 52 people. In 2017, two Islamic terrorists bombed Manchester Arena killing 22 and injuring 1,017 people – mostly teenagers. Despite being alerted to suspicious behaviour, the terrorists were not approached by security for fear of being called … racist.
Global statistics state that between 2013-24, 56,413 Islamic terror attacks have taken place – or 84.4% of all recorded terror attacks in the world. These are not insignificant facts. Yes, it matters that the latest wave of mass migration coming into Australia is originating from locations where this sort of religious violence is normalised.
We don’t want religious violence ‘normalised’ or excused as ‘resistance’ inside Australia.
Being worried about terrorism is not ‘racist’. A map of the world showing which nations are most worried about Islamic terror reveals Asia and the Middle East as hotpots. These are not ‘white majority’ areas.
The report on Islamophobia says in its forward:
‘The feeling I got from others was that Christianity was this white, wholesome religion, while Islam was something so foreign it was hard to understand. Although I knew deep down inside that was wrong.’
How bizarre. Christianity is not a white-based religion and to say so demonstrates the setting of ignorance that pervades the rest of the report.
Christianity is, however, a peaceful and reformed religion that has adapted to the modern world – driven Western Enlightenment – and led directly to the end of the global slave trade. Islam has been the most powerful slaver since before the West’s first slave ship, and there are still Islamic groups carrying out human slavery in parts of Africa and the Middle East.
Australia’s government deals with state-funded Islamic terror on the geopolitical stage and its existence is naturally of concern to citizens. This isn’t helped by groups declaring themselves to be ‘humanitarian’ protesting for a cause deeply rooted in Palestinian terrorist organisations such as Hamas and the PLO. The report fails to point out the self-inflicted harm the Muslim community does to itself by calling for a ‘Global Intifada’.
Yes, people may feel a sense of concern and even fear when large groups of people call for an Intifada or hold signs supporting violent regimes.
Instead of allowing an open discussion – free from the fear of legal retribution – Western leaders are seeking to codify ‘Islamophobia’ to protect themselves from electoral backlash.
A leading British KC, who is an advisor to the Attorney General, issued a dramatic warning last week about the dangers of defining Islamophobia in law.
He was not concerned about so-called ‘discrimination’ against the Islamic community – rather, he wanted to alert the government about the inherent danger of creating a ‘fear of being called Islamophobic’ and that might interact with the legal system.
‘The conflation of the two categories of “Islam” and “Muslims” could have dangerous outcomes…’ he posed, asserting it might be used to re-write various pieces of harassment and hate crime laws.
‘Suppose that such a definition would, in practice, be relied on in objecting to the use of powers by the police and security services to investigate persons who happen to be Muslim for criminal offences, including of the most violent or sexual nature…’
We have seen this work in practice already, with a fear of being called ‘racist’ allowing the UK’s horrific network of Pakistani Muslim Grooming Gangs to operate for more than a decade with the knowledge of police and politicians.
Too many were cowered by their fear of being called ‘racist’ to save young poor white girls. Over 1,400 victims. During the investigation, council staff admitted that they had been told ‘not to mention the ethnic origins of the perpetrators’ while another report said that Rotherham police effectively ignored their duties out of fear they might ‘increase racial tensions’.
The saga demonstrates how the fear of being attached to a slur overrode the basic moral principles of law enforcement, the courts, and government leaving citizens with no protection. It also revealed the role free speech played in shaming politicians into action.
This ecosystem only works if government allows the digital realm to remain an active participant in democracy.
When a hundred thousand people march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge calling for a Global Intifada, the ethnic cleansing of Jews, and comparing Australian ‘settlers’ with illegal occupations – ordinary Australians of a mostly Christian or secular heritage have every right to feel frightened and concerned about what has happened to the fabric of society.
These days, local government doesn’t have the nerve to repair a statue of Captain Cook because they’re frightened of pro-Palestine activists. Even the Prime Minister was chased out of his office of 30 years in Marrickville.
This is frightening.
Australians are being painted as the ‘aggressor’ in this scenario, instead of the victim of the government’s ‘Big Australia’ policy which was never voted upon or consented to.
It is not Islamophobic for Australians to be concerned about child brides, forced marriage, genital mutilation, honour killings, polygamy, and acid attacks. Once unheard of in Australia, these things have appeared on our streets.
Australia’s legal system isn’t prepared for these imported crimes, nor can the media accurately report these events for fear of being pulled up with complaints. Who suffers? The next generation of Australians, often the children of migrants, who were promised safety.
Our fear is that these ‘reports on Islamophobia’ and even the report on ‘Antisemitism’ will create a sectarian framework to silence Australians and override their legitimate concerns about the future of the country they were born to and whose ancestors sacrificed everything to create.
The protection of Australia must always triumph.
My Response in Full
You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Mathew 7:5
About the Author
Aftab Malik, a British-born migrant to Australia of Pakistani origin, was named as the Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia for a period of three years, commencing on 14 October 2024. In this role, he produced a report on Islamophobia in Australia.
Mr Aftab Malik is a United Nations Alliance of Civilisations “Global Expert” on Muslim Affairs. He served for nearly a decade in the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet, as well as the Premier’s Department, advising on community engagement, social cohesion, and countering violent extremism.
Mr Malik is a Guest Lecturer in the Department of Law at the University of Sydney, where he co-teaches an Introduction to Shariah.
Short Summary
The report praises Islam, yet fails to acknowledge any reasons why people have anti-Islamic opinions. The report fails to mention “Shariah”, despite the fact that it’s simply not possible to consider Islam’s role in Australia without talking about Shariah – especially given that the author lectured on Shariah.
This omission is secondary to the report’s primary omission, which is the absence of a definition of Islamophobia. In effect, the report is, in essence, saying “on this thing I can’t define, here are all the things I want done to prevent it”.
The report does not mention Hamas, although it defends Palestine at length and often. How can you defend Palestine without acknowledging the actions of Hamas?
In dismissing anti-Islam sentiment as Islamophobia, the report fails to take any responsibility for the horrors committed in the name of Islam.
This is not a balanced report – it’s one-sided propaganda.
I could just as easily to the same and fill this response with data on Islam’s war against Christianity. From there, I could make the case for the appointment of a Christian Envoy to root out ‘Christianophobia’.
It raises the question: why do we have envoys for antisemitism and Islamophobia, yet none for Christianity — especially considering that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the three major Semitic religions? Surely, one set of rules would work for all three, unless the intention is to elevate one above the others.
This report appears to support such an outcome by conflating Islam with racial discrimination—similar to that of Aboriginal and Asian communities—rather than religious discrimination. In its recommendations and where it suits the report’s purpose, Islam is framed as a race rather than a religion. This framing allows all other religions to be excluded to the sole advancement of Islam.
Mr Malik has constructed his recommendations to exclude all other religions. The opportunity to counter religious discrimination against all Australians, against all religions was not taken. Surely one set of rules could have been written to assist all religions counter discrimination. This report chose instead to elevate Islam above all others.
Let Islam Be Judged on Its Actions
Debating Islam from a cultural standpoint is counter-productive because it first requires agreement on the meaning of Australian culture. This has been a minefield for a generation as it provides an opportunity for the sneering “left” to display their contempt for Australia in a way that avoids the debate.
Instead, I ask the Envoy why he failed to mention the actions taken in recent years in the name of Islam – violent, unlawful actions which cannot be defended. This is an indefensible decision because it’s these actions which give rise to legitimate anti-Islamic sentiment.
Surely the correct approach would have been to consider what version of Islam could exist comfortably with the other religions that make up the wider Australian community. Instead, the report whitewashes Islamic atrocities and suggests all of Islam must be defended, even Hamas.
Below are examples of ongoing atrocities committed in the name of Islam, included to highlight issues that SHOULD have been addressed in the report, along with proposed solutions.
Islamists’ violence against Christians rose 60% since 2023, with 380 million Christians facing high/extreme persecution globally in 2025, many in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa saw Jihadists displace 16.2 million Christian.
Militants often demand faith renunciation (e.g., reciting Islamic prayers) before killing; women and children are disproportionately affected, with abductions leading to forced conversions (e.g. Leah Sharibu case, ongoing since 2018).
In this period Islamists have murdered between 40,000 and 55,000 Christians in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of these Christians have sought safe harbour in Australia. (Is it Mr Malik’s position these people should not be able to talk about their lived experience of religious persecution, rape and murder of family members at the hands of Islamic fighters?)
According to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC), anti-Christian hate crimes reached 2,444 in 2023, corresponding with the increase in Islamic immigration.
I could refer to the 3,647 proven cases of rape in the UK involving Islamic grooming gangs, with victims as young as 11. As with the Australian Skaif rape gangs, there is a clear use of rape as a weapon of Hijrah, albeit this being an interpretation scholars contest. If so many Islamists choose the violent interpretation of Islam, how can it be simply glossed over by the report?[i]
And of course, nobody mention October 7th [ii]or the Yazidi Genocide[iii] (survivors lived experience on this link) and this link[iv] from the UN Human Rights Council.
I might suggest the missing definition of Islamophobia could simply be ‘anyone who refuses to ignore the violence, hatred and conquest wrought in the name of Islam’
Report Preface
The preface includes this quote:
It is strange that we should not realise that no enemy could be more dangerous to us than the hatred with which we hate him, and that by our efforts against him we do less damage to our enemy than is wrought in our own heart. ST. AUGUSTINE
This passage is used to warn Christians of the damage they do themselves in hating Islam. It is misattributed – this quote does not appear in the works of St Augustine.
Instead, it encapsulates an ancient wisdom that hate begets hate, which is contained in the meaning of Mathew 26:52. The actual author is Rev Martin Luther King Jr.
The other quote, stated first in the preface does come from the Hadiths:
The Muslim is the one from whose tongue and hand people are safe, and the believer is the one people trust with their lives and wealth. [Sunan an-Nasa’i, Hadith 4995]
The juxtaposition of these two quotes sets the tone for the report. Put simply, Muslims are to be trusted and Christians should stop hating them.
I think it is necessary to talk about our options as Christians when confronted with evil, in response to the aggressive Islamic agenda and whitewashing of Islamic terror evident in this report.
What the Bible Says on Defence from Evil
During the Sermon on the Mount, at Mathew 5:39 Jesus says:
But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
In Mathew 26:52 a disciple, identified as Peter in the Gospel of John, draws a sword to defend Jesus from being arrested and struck a guard, and Jesus tells him to put away his weapon. The lesson is that violent behaviour can lead to more violent behaviour.[v] Debate on this lesson goes to the plan Jesus had to martyr himself, which Peter’s actions threatened, rather than a blanket instruction to never defend oneself.
The debate on self-defence more commonly turns on the meaning of Luke 22:36:
Then he said to them, but now he that hath a bag, let him take it, and likewise a scrip: and he that hath none, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword.[vi]
Is this passage allegory, or is this a command to take up a literal sword? The footnote to the 1599 Geneva Bible (GNV) says:
All this talk is by way of an allegory, as if he said, O my friends and fellow soldiers, you have lived hitherto as it were in peace: but now there is a most sharp battle at hand to be fought, and therefore you must lay all other things aside, and think upon furnishing yourselves in armour. And what this armour is, he showeth by his own example, when he prayed afterward in the garden, and reproved Peter for striking with the sword.
Ephesians 6:10-18, which is too long to reproduce here, supports this viewpoint. And yet Romans 12: 17-19 says:
Repay no evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceablywith all. Beloved, never avenge yourself, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
The Bible does not make an explicit statement that violence in defence of oneself or of another is a sin. It does make the point that revenge is a sin and defending oneself out of hate for the other is a sin.
John 15:13 instructs:
Greater love than this hath no man, when any man bestoweth his life for his friends.
This can be interpreted as self-defence of others. If one gave one’s life out of non-violence, simply kneeled and let them take your head, then your friends would be next. This verse only works when read in the context of dying in defence of one’s kin.
The Book of Esther describes the Purim, where Jews defended themselves using weapons as an organised resistance to King Xerxes 1, who had caused an order to be made that they be slaughtered. This use of self-defence of their kin decimated the King’s forces. Significantly Jesus celebrated Purim (John 5:1).
For mine, the last word in this debate is contained in Section 132:26-27 of the Doctrine and Covenants. A sacred text for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints makes it clear that the sin of killing another relates to the spilling of “innocent blood”.
This verse is also found in Proverbs 6:17 where God condemned “The haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and the hands that shed innocent blood,”
Those who come into your community with the stated intent of “convert or die” are not innocent, once their actions turn violent. Self-defence is then permitted.
This accords with my long-held belief that free speech, including religious speech, stops where calls for violence begin.
There can be no religious exemption to speech calling for violence against another.
Aboriginal – Indian Admixture
The report appears to be providing ‘air cover’ for a growing argument that Western settlers are migrants, no different from Indian and Muslim migrants today, and therefore have no more of a claim to Australia than they do.
This relies on the report’s mis-dating of Javanese contact with Australia (see next section), and secondly on the juxtaposition of Aboriginals and Islamic traders in the report’s Acknowledgement of Country.
This relates to the level of Indian genes found in Aboriginal DNA, especially those in Western and Northern Australia. [vii]
It’s true the race we know as Aboriginal came ‘out of Africa’ like the rest of us around 70,000 years ago. So, we are all one people in that respect. Evolution of Aboriginal DNA mostly stopped around 10,000 years ago with the loss of the land bridge between Australian and Asia/PNG.
There was migration from North Indian/Bengal settlers who came to the west coast around 4000 years ago. They make up between 4% and 11% of Aboriginal DNA, called an admixture event. This is hardly a claim to country.
Islam Predates Western Settlement in Australia
The report does accurately mention the Javanese contact with Australia, coming from Islamic traders from Makassar (modern day Java). This coastal trade extended from Darwin to the Pilbara, which Mr Malik dates to the 15th Century.[i] There is confirmation of this in the earliest known map of Indonesia from 1601, which clearly shows this part of Australia.
Conveniently, this corresponds with the spread of Islam in Indonesia, which started with Persian traders in the 1400s and came to end with a caliphate in the 1500s.
A glaring error in Mr Malik’s report is the start date for Javanese exploration of Australia. It was not the 1500s. It dates back to at least 931 AD. This was the first known mention of a southern land contained in the historical records, etched into a copper plaque called Sri Mpu Sindok Inscription of Waharu IV (931)[viii] which the Indonesian Government now holds.
With a sailing distance of 12 days and the Javanese in possession of ocean-going sailing boats, it stands to reason this exploration and subsequent trade did in fact happen.[ix] This is confirmed in the a sharing of language and customs between Northern Aboriginals and Makassar people.
Mr Malik describes in glowing terms the Makassar contact, and in keeping with the rest of the report, he fails to tell the other side of the story.[vii]
Mr Malik’s report, like so much government communication, is riddled with misinformation or disinformation.
Anthropologist Ian McIntosh has speculated that the initial effects of contact with the Makassan fishermen resulted in “turmoil” with the extent of Islamic influence being noteworthy. In another paper McIntosh says – “strife, poverty and domination … is a previously unrecorded legacy of contact between Aborigines and Indonesians“. He claims that the Makassan appear to have been welcomed initially; although, relations deteriorated when, “aborigines began to feel they were being exploited … leading to violence on both sides“.
The argument that Australia should be Islamic because they were here first is a rewriting of history. Javanese visited Australia, they did not colonise it. Islam came 500 years after that contact and they did not colonise it either- we did.
It is interesting to note that the Javanese had steel, advanced ship construction, weaponry, cannons, gunpowder, advanced tools and of course the wheel at the time their presence was documented in the early 1700s. None of these were shared with the Aboriginal people, as would be the case if the intention was exploitation not assimilation.
This does suggest the exchange was one sided and limited to economic exploitation of marine resources and not the rosy love-in that the report portrays.
Palestine
Palestine gets quite a run – four pages plus multiple other mentions (49 total). Hamas is NOT mentioned and October 7th is used as an example of people hating on Muslims. This suggests Mr Malik supports Hamas and is using this report to cover for them.[ii]
The section concludes with this call-out:
The destruction of Gaza”, writes Peter Beinart, has become “a symbol of our age” signifying “unchecked cruelty and unbearable pain.
This really sums up the report. Hamas do unspeakable things and people understandably respond with suspicion and hostility to anyone defending Hamas’ actions. Along comes Mr Malik who defines this reaction as Islamophobia and calls for a massive government apparatus to silence those reacting in that manner.
The attempt to define Gaza in terms of Israel’s demolition of Gaza after the event, in part to get their hostages back, fails to acknowledge the horror that led up to that action. This is disgraceful behaviour from a government official.
Islam and Terror
Quote from the report:
Assertions regarding the inherent violence of Islam are not confined to far-right extremist echo chambers; such claims have also been propagated within scholarly and popular literature. In the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, there was an overwhelming proliferation of publications that contributed to narratives depicting Islam as intrinsically associated with violence, extremism and terrorism. Despite more than 2 decades of grassroots initiatives by community organisations and efforts by Muslim scholars, imams and academics to distinguish between terrorism and mainstream Islam, the continued rise in global terror incidents post the 11 September terror attacks perpetuated the obscuring of extremist acts within the broader, diverse spectrum of Muslim beliefs and practices.
This passage, central to Malik’s refutation regarding Islam and terror, makes no sense. To me it reads as follows. Since September 11 we have tried really hard to distinguish between Islam and terror, and yet Muslims keep committing atrocities so nobody believes us.
As a result of this failure Australians have “Islam anxiety…Muslims feel isolated, marginalised and disenfranchised, as they are perceived to be framed as the threat from within, and divided along the lines as “good Muslim, bad Muslim”
On one hand Mr Malik is acknowledging Islamists’ ongoing extreme acts, then on the other hand complaining about the “good Muslim/bad Muslim” dichotomy. The report combines all shades of Islam into a single entity, in effect using peaceful Muslims as human shields for Islamic terrorists.
This was the time to defend the good and excise the evil within – however this is not the path that the report takes.
Christianity and Judaism have their issues, yet it is Islam the report is trying to whitewash – so let’s stay with that. The report concludes the section with this statement:
Conversely, the combination of local and global terrorist attacks, the promotion of a constant fear of, and threat from, local Muslim extremists, confusion, distortion, and misrepresentation of Islam, has generated significant anxiety and fear toward Muslim Australians. This has resulted in them being perceived more negatively than members of any other religious group for an extended period.
If there were not “local Muslim extremists”, local and global terrorist acts (nice self-own) then there would be nothing to fuel ‘Islamic Anxiety’!
The absence of a single Christian terrorist attack in Australia stands in contrast to the behaviour of the Islamic community and explains the absence of ‘Christian Anxiety’ – except amongst “left” wing social media commentators concerned about their chances of sudden immolation when passing a Church. [see references below]
Freedom of Speech
Report P21 quotes:
Freedom of speech is a critical pillar of a free society. It is imperative to affirm that these recommendations are not aimed at censoring legitimate, lawful discourse or even the dislike or critique of Muslims or Islam. Instead, they are intended to address the serious issue of prejudice, racism and hate that incite discrimination, hostility or violence. Criticism of Islam or Muslims, when grounded in respectful and lawful debate, must remain protected as a fundamental exercise of free speech.
I am pleased to see this included, yet the conflict with the recommendations calls the intent of the statement into question. As an example, this is the next point in the report:
I am confident that we can foster a society where anti-Muslim hate and prejudice are acknowledged, challenged and rectified.
Rectified? I can’t ask someone who criticises Christianity to rectify their comment! On one hand Mr Malik talks about freedom of speech and on the other he talks about forcing people to rectify their behaviour and comment.
The Recommedations
There are 54 headline recommendations, many of which contain multiple parts, extending across 12 government departments (I won’t go over all of these in detail as many repeat).
Recommendation 5: Commission of Inquiry into Islamophobia
Establish a commission of inquiry into Islamophobia, with Terms of Reference to examine all aspects of Islamophobia.
This recommendation takes the anecdotal evidence of anti-Islamic sentiment that the report advances and turns it into a root and branch inquiry into every limitation on the expansion of Islam in Australia.
In this, we see the report laying the groundwork for a British-style police state, where criticism of Islam is prosecuted, while similar actions against Christianity or Judaism are not.
Additionally, this inquiry is to look at whether a definition of Islamophobia is needed. When taken together with the absence of a definition in this report, one could suggest the intention is to allow Islam to decide what is Islamophobic.
Recommendation 6: Whitewash Palestine
Establish a commission of inquiry into anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism.
This continues the approach to ignore anything the Palestinians and/or Hamas have done and to characterise the motive for everything else as solely racism, instead of outrage at the slaughter of innocents.
Recommendation 7: Home Affairs to Lead Islamic Propaganda
Strengthen funding to enable research teams to gather evidence on effective interventions that combat Islamophobia in Australia, and to develop, evaluate and disseminate anti-Islamophobia programs.
Home Affairs is not the only Department being tasked with propaganda duties.
Recommendation 8 – Home Affairs to physically defend mosques
This recommendation sums up the report. Home Affairs is to lead programs to guarantee the security of Islamic schools, Islamic community centres and mosques. Shouldn’t this be written without the Islamic descriptor? Isn’t it the Government’s job NOW to protect the safety of schools, community centres and places of worship? And why not use the laws we already have which apply equally to all religions?
Recommendation 15: Mandatory Sensitivity Training
Mandate compulsory religious sensitivity training for all Australian Federal Police officers.
This same initiative has turned the United Kingdom into a police state. Recent incidents include arresting a citizen for saying he doesn’t like to see Palestinian flags flying in his street,[xi]
The Coskun case this year is relevant here. A man burnt pages from the Quran while criticising Islam for defending Islamic terrorism. He was convicted for hatred against Muslims, even though his comments were a discussion of the contents of the book, not personally against Muslims themselves. This is the problem with the report’s attempt to restore blasphemy laws for Islam – and not Christianity and Judaism. No matter how this is implemented, the laws will prevent any criticism of Islam in any situation. Even terrorism.[xii]
In case there is any doubt of the purpose of this section to implement the UK policing model in Australia, the report includes:
20b.hate crime scrutiny panels, similar to the United Kingdom model, at district levels, to improve communication, operational policing of hate crime and community trust over time.
22. Implement religious discrimination training for all legal professionals within the Attorney General’s Department. Just to make sure nobody trusted with judicial fairness stops to consider should people be prosecuted for criticising the Palestinian flag.
23. Establish workshops to assist staff in all divisions to recognise and address unconscious biases that may affect their work and decision-making process. Struggle sessions for Islam-hesitancy.
Recommendation 21: Counter-terrorism Laws
Establish an advisory panel consisting of representatives from diverse Muslim communities to provide insights into the potential impacts and unintended consequences of new counter-terrorism legislation on Muslim communities.
The report did not establish that our current laws were unfairly affecting Islam, so why is this needed?
Recommendation 28-31: Brainwash Our Children
Review the national curriculum pertaining to Islam, Muslims, and Muslim history, in both primary and secondary education, to ensure content is accurate and to make inclusions of and acknowledge Muslim contributions to Australia, Western civilisation and the development of universal values.
(Provide) clear, actionable guidelines specifically aimed at combating Islamophobia, alongside broader anti-racism, diversity and social cohesion measures. It should ensure a whole-sector approach to fostering diversity and equity in the Education Sector.
There are three pages on how to use education to advance Islam. The report conflagrates Islamophobia with Aboriginal discrimination and ethnic racism. In this construction, Islamophobia is a product of racial discrimination rather than religious discrimination. The effect is to exclude religious discrimination against other religions from the debate entirely.
The report reveals government will continue its role as the chief purveyor of misinformation and disinformation.
Recommendation 41: Islam in Sport
Invest more in funding community-level sporting initiatives and organisations. These community grants must be evaluated, leveraging the research capacity this report advocates (such as) a. support the organisation of interfaith sports tournaments, with mixed-faith teams participating.
Sounds reasonable, until the reason for this is explained:
b.provide funding for training programs that educate coaches and volunteers about cultural sensitivity and religious practices. Which Iassume includes segregation of the sexes, not shaking hands with unbelievers after the match, etc.
e. fund the development or renovation of community sports facilities, including spaces for prayer, reflection and meditation.
Prayer rooms at the footie, cricket, swimming etc, using taxpayers’ money to pay the cost. Add up the cost of that idea.
g.encourage partnerships between sporting organisations and local Muslim community groups to co-host events, workshops and discussions that focus on building relationships and understanding.
Send your children to footie training and they end up in a Mosque, or getting Islamic instruction in the changing sheds.
Establish an educational not-for-profit centre that affirms the presence, contributions and achievements of Muslim Australians and that promotes initiatives in arts, culture and media…foster active collaboration between media outlets, journalists, community organisations and educators to promote narratives that foster understanding, respect and social cohesion. This includes:
i.supporting media campaigns that challenge stereotypes and misinformation about Muslim Australians and Islam
ii.creating platforms for Muslim voices and stories to be heard authentically and positively
In other words, Government-funded propaganda. This isn’t an isolated recommendation; it is one of the recurring themes.
Recommendation 54: Subvert Parliament
Develop codes of conduct for all Australian Parliamentarians and staff on what constitutes Islamophobia, and implement mandatory …annual…training programs on Islamophobia for all parliamentarians and their advisors.
This recommendation continues the intention that these measures should not be written generally to protect all religions, rather they should be written only for Islam. The Jenkins report established the dangerous precedent that Members of Parliament can be forced to undergo re-education. This recommendation is therefore NOT unprecedented. It is, nonetheless, an unacceptable interference in the exercise of the duties of a Member of Parliament, as is Jenkins.
The report seeks to impose penalties on Members of Parliament for “wrongthink”:
Introduce clear contingencies for responses to parliamentarians who engage in hate speech or behaviour. These contingencies may include…formal reprimands and temporary suspension from the party room or various party-granted roles…establish an independent oversight for conduct complaints.There is already a formal complaint process in the Parliament, the report seeks to overturn that tested procedure and replace it with a Kangaroo Court of his own construction.
Conclusion
There is talk on social media of a Voice-style body to monitor legislation, yet this is not what the report says. It calls for a co-ordinating committee to oversee the implementation and operation of these measures. That is not unprecedented in social change initiatives. The Government may choose to make this an ’Islamic Voice’, and that would be a significant and risky policy.
Instead, the report targets the Australian Government and seeks to root out any impediment to the expansion of Islam in Australia. Additionally, the report calls for taxpayers’ money to be spent indoctrinating and compromising our entire society – education, judiciary, legislature, policing, media, communications and even sport.
The report fails to define Islamophobia and instead chooses a “we know it when we see it” approach. That is, Islamophobia is defined from lived experience – with those experiences no different to many others in our multi-ethnic and multi-religious community.
No cost/benefit analysis is attempted; there is no debate on the practicality of the measures proposed. This is nothing other than a shopping list born of ambition for Islam in Australia, with zero consideration of what the wider community wants or needs.
Mr Malik clearly does not want Islam to take an equal place amongst all of Australia’s religions. Rather he seeks to elevate Islam above all others. It seems that he wants the government to give Islam an opening, and support from social, legislated and financial means.
I will be researching whether the report and some of the recommendations contravene the Commonwealth Constitution.
One Nation opposes all the recommendations, as well as any others from any source that seek to divide Australia—particularly those that promote racial or religious division.
We are one community, we are ONE nation and our laws must protect all of us equally.
[x] The Hilton Hotel Bombing is still blamed on the Ananda Marga, and Wieambilla shooting was in no way related to Christian teachings, the cause there was perceived government oppression combined with some radical sovereign citizen beliefs.
The assassination of Turning Point CEO Charlie Kirk has shocked the Western world, and in particular, young conservatives who saw his good-faith debates as an escape from a hostile learning environment.
It’s hard to believe that a 31-year-old father of two could be shot in the throat in front of both his family and a crowd while having a conversation.
University campuses are meant to be a cradle of learning – not a slaughterhouse.
We should all be deeply concerned about the normalisation of political violence, and it would be wrong to assume that this dark chapter has closed with his death.
Political leaders have responsibility to promote peace and democracy.
Voters take their lead from elected leaders and so today I call on every member of the Senate and House of Representatives to lead. Make a declaration against violence.
A lack of clear leadership on this topic risks isolating young conservative Australians who are frightened by the celebration of their peers. They need our support. They need to trust that they are safe.
Western politicians are not paying attention to the rising tensions amount young voters. Additional deaths are being called for, and political violence is being discussed as casually as we might chat about the weather.
This behaviour is a natural response to the new paradigm that ‘words are literally violence’. If words are violence, they can be responded to with violence. At first this belief was used to justify censorship. Now, it’s being used to justify violence.
This is wholly unacceptable. If there is one lesson that Charlie Kirk put forward, it’s that conversation is the pathway to peace.
Charlie would want us to have more debates.
Talking is what keeps us away from violence.
Look what happened in Nepal where the communist government used a social media ban to conceal its corruption and silence political opposition. Gen Z rose up in revolution, and then that revolution was taken over by criminal and depraved forces who spread violence, mayhem, destruction, and left the impoverished country in flames.
This is not the future we want for the West.
We do not want to open the door to civil unrest or malicious actors who want nothing more than to destroy our peace.
The answer to this rising normalisation of violence among the young Left is not to push social media censorship demands. Rather, we should insist the education system encourage and facilitate open debate. Australian universities are active participants in the censorship of conservative thought. Universities have allowed disruptive protest groups to hound and intimidate. Sometimes, the administration encourages it. That must end.
Western Civilisation is built on the free and unfearing pursuit of knowledge, not paranoid gatekeeping
Our political class must immediately walk back its undemocratic desire to censor young people on social media and stop pretending that its pursuit of ‘misinformation and disinformation’ is anything other than a cynical attempt to shut people up.
If you have a political idea, it must be won in the fire of debate – not with the match.
Charlie waded into the thick of propagandised university thought and sought to help young minds escape the prison of dogma built for them by their lecturers, politicians, and peers.
He did what the rest of us should aspire to do.
Charlie invited students to a fair debate which usually became a patient attempt to return each person back to first principles. It was here, with the implementation of reason and knowledge, that so many young people found their way back to the truth.
His approach to freedom of speech was to educate, not indoctrinate.
To open minds.
Donald Trump says that Charlie Kirk is: ‘A martyr for truth and freedom.’
For Australia, let him be a warning for us to change our ways and correct our course. While we are still one united people, our children can be brought together in conversation to disagree peacefully and build a civilisation.
Charlie Kirk and the defence of Freedom by Senator Malcolm Roberts
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/953b06fc-64a6-4627-95ad-866379e82b4d_1080x1350.webp?fit=1080%2C1350&ssl=113501080Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2025-09-25 16:22:042025-09-25 16:22:14Charlie Kirk and the Defence of Freedom
One Nation is the champion of free speech and have been since 2020 when we stood against the inhuman breaches of basic human rights imposed during COVID by both Labor and Liberal governments at all levels.
We support the Right to Protest Bill 2025—especially its recognition of peaceful protest—yet raise concerns about vague definitions and lack of protections for others’ freedoms, like movement and travel.
One Nation will always champion core freedoms and states’ rights, and we urge improvements to this bill to ensure clarity and accountability.
Transcript
One Nation leads the way on freedom of speech. We have done so since 2020, with the horrific impediments against freedom of speech and the withdrawal of free speech and human rights that occurred with COVID mismanagement under both Labor and Liberal governments at a state and federal level. I start by thanking Senator Shoebridge, who has, largely through his work holding governments accountable—this one and the previous one—earned my respect for his work on human rights. I do not, though, trust the Greens as a whole. They often, and usually, contradict data and evidence, so I don’t trust them. But I do trust Senator Shoebridge.
Let’s go through a quick list of positives. What do we like? This bill, the Right to Protest Bill 2025, recognises the right to peaceful protest. We support that right wholeheartedly. This bill also recognises that the right to peaceful protest is subject to issues of national security—rightly so—and also subject to public safety, public order, the protection of public health, and, importantly, the protection of other people’s rights and freedoms. That’s very important. Sadly, this last protection, the protection of people’s rights and freedoms, is just a motherhood statement, and the body of the bill contains nothing specific about those protections.
What are we not comfortable with? The definition of ‘protest’ in section 5(b) includes the phrase ‘actions that are disruptive or seek to disrupt’. We do not support disruptive matters, disruptive events or protests, or those that seek to disrupt; we oppose that. The bill does not specifically consider conflicts with other people’s individual or group rights, including the right to free movement and travel. I have a list of freedoms I keep in mind: the freedom of life, the freedom of belief, the freedom of thought, the freedom of faith, the freedom of speech, the freedom of association, the freedom of exchange, the freedom of movement and travel, and the freedom to live life free from government interference. These are basic freedoms. One Nation supports these, but we do not see any consideration in this bill for the rights of others specifically, including the freedom of movement and travel.
Nor does the bill guide or address the resolution of conflicting needs when people in society have conflicting needs, when one group wants to protest and the other group sees an infringement of its rights. The bill does not consider offensive language or intimidation through noise or numbers of protesters. For One Nation, it is extremely important, as we have said in the past on similar bills, to have Australians feeling safe. Australians must feel safe. We cannot abide by any intimidation of Australians.
My next point is that the bill encroaches on areas that should remain under state law. One Nation is very strong and clear on states’ rights because we believe in competitive federalism—a fundamental tenet of accountability in this country. What we have seen is that the states have had their rights robbed, stolen by encroaching, greedy, all-powerful federal governments that seek to run the country with no accountability under both Labor and the Liberals. We don’t like the encroachment into other areas that should remain under state law. The bill tries to limit penalties for contraventions that may be considered to apply to necessary restrictions, without defining the word ‘excessive’. There’s no definition of the word ‘excessive’. Sadly the word ‘peaceful’ is not defined, and that’s extremely important.
Our conclusions are that we thank Senator Shoebridge for introducing this bill and debating the bill, but we are concerned about the vague wording. Is there poor drafting? Let’s give Senator Shoebridge the benefit of the doubt because, although the Greens can be disruptive when it suits them, Senator Shoebridge has not done anything malicious in my experience with him.
Senator Shoebridge: Not actually malicious!
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Ciccone): Thank you, senators. Please direct your contributions through the chair.
I support the concept of peaceful protest. It’s very important to get that on the record. This bill, as it is, suffers from deficiencies that need to be addressed. Thank you.
Last weekend, the Australian National Review hosted a free speech summit on the Gold Coast. Although I was unable to attend in person due to commitments in Canberra for the opening of the 48th Parliament, I expressed my strong support for all those standing in defence of free speech and national sovereignty.
We answer to God, our communities, and ourselves.
Transcript
Thank you to the Australian National Review and the organisers of this summit on Free Speech. I can’t be with you in person because I’m in Canberra attending the opening events of the 48th Parliament and working with our newly elected Senators from NSW Warwick Stacey and from Western Australia Tyron Whitten to hit the ground running in the 48th Parliament.
As Senator Pauline Hanson said after the recent election – this is not the end of an election, it’s the start of a movement.
A movement that requires conservatives and patriots to set aside political differences, to forgive those who tried to take a slice out of each other to grow their own support and to band together against the evil that threatens our beautiful country.
Australia is under threat from a parliament that’s been captured. Globalist interests continue pursuing an agenda leading ultimately to serfdom for everyday Australians.
When the World Economic Forum says, “you will own nothing and be happy” they actually mean “The billionaires they work for will own everything and you will be happy – or else”.
This was never a conspiracy theory. Their annual meetings in Davos spend days explaining how the transfer of wealth and sovereignty will be conducted.
Most elements of their control agenda have already been put in place. Continuous, hidden facial recognition and identity verification tied back to a Digital ID is already in place in Australia.
There are no controls over the data, no audits to ensure data is not being copied and that deletions occur in the correct time frame. The audit that’s done looks only at the procedures in place with no forensic audit to see what’s really going on.
Children under the age for Digital ID are being disenfranchised not just from social media, they’re cut from the internet as a whole.
Earlier this month Bing and Google announced they are trialling a system that prevents anyone under 16 accessing the internet without a parental lock. For those who would defend the idea based on “keeping kids safe” understand that evil always finds a way.
Protecting children is the role of the parent and should involve educating the child on how to recognise and avoid harm. Above all else, it should involve defeating grooming. And that involves showing our children love and enabling them to feel valued and worthy. Thereby preventing groomers from cultivating feelings of being valued and worthy.
These are the Christian values on which our society has been founded. The further we move away from these principles, giving life to an age of needless white guilt, victimhood and immorality the worse our society has become.
I was astonished to read a story a few weeks ago of a child predator here in Australia who met his victims on dating apps. Children as young as 13 are on dating apps.
Most of the sites which are of concern, and these are not X, Facebook or Youtube, have apps that the current legislation does not cover. Virtual Private Networks, VPN’s, will become huge.
The Government’s war on freedom of association will have no benefit beyond increasing the tech skills of children so they can continue to talk to their friends online.
This may involve migrating chats from regulated social media to porn sites like Pornhub whose forum has over 300 million users.
To sign up requires no age verification. Visitors simply click a check box saying they’re over 18 and provide an email address.
Video games now have chat facility, and this is a growing area for groomers to find their victims. These are not included in the Government’s control agenda.
What can we conclude from this situation? The social media ban is not about protecting children because it only protects children from the least dangerous websites.
IT’S ABOUT CONDITIONING THE PUBLIC TO ACCEPT THIS LOSS OF PRIVACY AND PERSONAL SOVEREIGNTY.
It’s about perfecting the technology to be used at some point against all of us.
And it’s about getting children used to government control from cradle to grave.
We’re seeing the weaponisation, the inversion, of human rights to justify the loss of freedoms to an extent that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable.
No longer are human rights about DEFENDING freedom. In this inverted world human rights are used to limit our freedom, limit our choice of words, limit our right to protest, limit our right to freedom of association and freedom of commerce.
This is a move that’s an essential precursor to the final stage of their global control agenda, which is the imprisonment of citizens inside home units that are nothing more than human filing cabinets, located in prison communities, called variously 15-minute cities dishonestly labelled as so-called “sustainable” cities.
In these digital prisons you will not own a car, your furniture, your whitegoods. Instead, there is life-by-subscription. Which is well underway.
During the governments’ COVID response we witnessed these predatory billionaires respond to the virus using their control of the media and their control of corporations like Coles and Woolworths to spread fear.
Fear that offered as the solution jabs from pharmaceutical companies these same parasitic billionaires own.
In this way, $5 trillion was transferred from everyday citizens worldwide to the world’s predatory billionaires.
All under the protection of politicians who take donations from these crony capitalist companies.
This is called crony capitalism and it’s the greatest threat to human rights in our lifetime.
The growth of conservative powerhouses such as Reform in the UK and AfD in Germany shows the public have finally realised the water around them is boiling.
The fight for free speech and human rights is the challenge those at this conference have accepted.
Praise to you.
Restoring freedom must start with the people’s media, which is rising. Yet it won’t bring enough people to our movement without improving credibility through more rigorous journalism.
Self-control is something we adults teach our children yet often forgot to use ourselves.
In the Senate, I’ve prided myself on being factual and this has protected myself and One Nation, playing a large role in the growth of our electoral support.
Finally, as a movement we need to restore Christian values, biblical values.
We do not answer to Julie Inman Grant. We do not answer to Anthony Albanese. Nor to the World Economic Forum, nor to the UN World Health Organisation, nor the UN.
We answer to God. We answer to our communities. We answer to our self.
Good luck to all the award nominees for the Australian Media Awards and enjoy the summit.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/08doSkp27kg/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2025-07-23 08:06:132025-07-24 11:50:47Australia Must Unite Against Globalist Control
Last week at Senate Estimates, I asked the Australian Federal Police (AFP) about the measures that are in place to protect Australians that are in a country that is guided by a Christian influenced Constitution. The AFP clarified that while they don’t monitor social media, they will review evidence to determine if any hate crime offence has occurred.
Greens’ Senator Shoebridge challenged whether our Constitution is really influenced by Christianity, however the Chair ended this line of discussion, stating that the preamble of our Constitution referenced “Almighty God”. (It’s worth noting that the country was overwhelmingly Christian when the Constitution was drafted.)
The AFP took on notice my question about the total number of arrests that have been made to date, however so far, there have been two charges for displaying terrorist symbols and ten for advocating terrorism. My question regarding deportation of non-citizens convicted of hate crimes was also taken on notice.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you and your people for appearing here today, Mr Kershaw. According to our Commonwealth Constitution’s opening sentence Australia is constituted as a Christian country. What’s being done to charge those preachers in mosques of preaching hatred and threatening violence and use of physical force against Christians here in our country and bringing such hate preachers to justice?
Mr Nutt: Senator, I can take that one. Obviously, we’re very concerned where online hate speech and other actions of hate occur in the community. We obviously work in partnership with our state and territory colleagues, who are often first responders to certain offences. The AFP does not monitor the internet. We certainly review any allegation that relates to hate speech targeting any protected group against the Commonwealth offences that are available to us and we assess the content in those circumstances. That often involves obtaining legal advice. These offences change over time, in terms of what an offence may look like, decisions of court and those sorts of things, so we always ensure that, at the time, we are looking at not only current but past conduct and that we evaluate that conduct against not only the offences but the standards and decisions of courts in the jurisdiction where the offences occurred.
Senator ROBERTS: Have any such preachers of hate in Australia been charged, and, if not, why not?
Mr Nutt: I don’t have statistics relevant—
Senator ROBERTS: Can you get them?
Mr Nutt: I’m happy to take that question on notice. I take it you are just referring to the AFP, because that’s all we can respond to.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes.
Senator SHOEBRIDGE: Chair, I have a point of order. I think in the circumstances this country finds itself, to leave on the record uncorrected the statement from Senator Roberts that the Constitution establishes Australia as a Christian country is unconscionable. Can I say the preamble to the Constitution references the ‘blessing of Almighty God’. As far as I can remember Christianity does not have a monopoly on the concept of ‘Almighty God’, and we shouldn’t allow that on the record.
CHAIR: Senator Shoebridge, order.
Senator ROBERTS: It’s a Christian God.
Senator SHOEBRIDGE: Maybe for you, Senator.
CHAIR: Senator Shoebridge, thank you. You’re welcome to go and post those thoughts on Facebook. Senator Roberts is able to make his views known, and people can take them at his word, knowing his past reputation for—I’m not saying that you are misleading the parliament, but you have your views and they’re well known, and I think people can take your statements together with your previous statements. Senator Shoebridge, I don’t think anyone would be concerned at all about statements about the Constitution in this Senate. People say a lot of different things that aren’t true from time to time. People can just read it. It’s a document. I think we can move on. Senator Roberts, do you have any other questions?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, I do. There have recently been faith based crimes committed in Australia involving fire bombings, graffiti painted on buildings, cars damaged and hate symbols displayed. How many arrests have been made, and what is being done to identify the criminals and bring them to justice?
Mr Nutt: Again, I’m happy to take those matters. Again, we can only speak on behalf of the AFP. Certainly, there are Commonwealth offences not only in the recent legislative amendment on 8 February, which has been described as the hate crimes bill, but other offences including in the prohibited hate symbols and other measures act. This legislation is available to our state and territory colleagues as well, and they can use those offences where state offences don’t apply.
Since 8 January 2024, when the prohibited hate symbols act came into effect, we have not charged anyone in relation to prohibited Nazi symbols under 80.2H of the Criminal Code Act 1995; however, we have charged two individuals in respect of the prohibited terrorist organisation symbols—that is, the intentional public display of proscribed terrorism organisation symbols—and we’ve also issued a direction under section 80.2K for the display of a prohibited terrorist organisation symbol. We have not charged anyone in terms of the trading of symbols, but we do have a number of investigations on the books with respect to prohibited terrorist symbols generally.
In terms of advocating terrorism, which, again, is the current version of the offence which came into effect in December 2023, we haven’t charged anyone. This is around advocating terrorism under section 80.2C of the Criminal Code. However, under the previous version, which was available between 2021 and 2023, we charged 10 persons for advocating terrorism under section 80.2C of the Criminal Code. As I mentioned, there was some updated hate crimes offences that came into effect on 8 February this year. Those offences are yet to be utilised by the AFP.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister, this question is for you. Will noncitizens convicted of hate crimes be subjected to deportation?
Senator Farrell: I’ll have to take that question on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Back to the AFP. Do AFP officers need to get permission from a higher authority before making an arrest, or may an AFP officer exercise their discretion to make an arrest for a crime unfolding in front of them?
Mr Kershaw: Normally, depending on the nature of the event—if it’s a public order matter and some other particular matters—a senior officer can direct someone to be arrested, but there is also what we call the ‘Office of Constable’, which is an independent office that goes way back in the day to the UK, where an individual officer is held liable if they make the arrest. It’s their decision, independent of anyone else. So you could have a situation where one officer may gather some facts and say, ‘I’m okay to arrest that person,’ and another officer may say: ‘I’m going to use a summons. I’m not going to arrest them. I’m going to treat it differently or give them a caution.’ We, as senior officers, have to respect that and understand that. Discretion is really important, and we teach that and we train that with our officers.
Senator ROBERTS: Is there an ongoing training program for AFP officers in relation to rapidly evolving legislation relevant to the issues I’ve raised today? Mr Nutt alluded to a number of pieces if legislation that have come in, in recent years.
Mr Nutt: There are others at the table, in terms of those who are responsible for our legislative reform area. But our legislative reform area provides guidance to staff, which then gets incorporated into relevant training programs. We also work closely with the Attorney-General’s Department, which has responsibility with respect to Commonwealth legislation, and it provides materials not only to us but also to our state and territory partners on guidance in the application of Commonwealth offences, particularly new ones.
I won’t speak on behalf of the Attorney-General’s Department, but when we have new legislation that relates to areas of mutual interest with our state and territory police we provide that advice to them by essentially circulating the Attorney-General’s Department’s material. In certain circumstances—for example, in the espionage and foreign interference arena—we develop a training course and provide it to the state and territory police to assist their officers and for them to incorporate it into their own training program. We aren’t responsible for training state and territory police.
Senator ROBERTS: This is my last question, Chair. There has been a lot of violence displayed on the internet and on TV—news et cetera—for the last 12 months or so. When will Christian, Jewish and other followers of faith be able to feel safe in our own country, knowing that the police will protect them from harm?
Mr Nutt: Perhaps where I’ll take that question is that we’ve had some success with a relatively new offence relating to the possession and communication of violent extremist material. This offence focuses on material that portrays terrorist acts. It is also material that aids—in terms of education—in the carrying out of violent acts in the advancement of a religious, political or ideological cause.
Since this offence was introduced, it has been quite effective in the early identification of individuals who are consuming and potentially acting on violent extremist material. You may note that in the last week we had our first conviction under these provisions. We were very concerned about the violent extremist material that that individual had. We’re concerned because of the nature of the material and how accessible it is—building on what the commissioner has already said, in terms of the role and responsibility of internet service providers and the like in preventing the spread, distribution and access to violent extremist materials—and more broadly around end-to-end encryption. When it comes to our young people and vulnerable people more generally, we have noted the digital algorithms that may come into play of people’s internet activity and developed what has generally been considered to be echo chambers where someone looking up something may be pushed along or drawn along a path. The result being increased exposure to violent extremist material. We’re quite concerned about that as an issue.
Senator ROBERTS: To build on your answer—and thank you for the answer—I’m guessing the AFP does a lot more intelligence work these days as a proportion of its overall crime fighting than it used to because of the internet.
Mr Nutt: It’s always a mix.
Ms Barrett: I’ll also take the opportunity to reference Special Operation Avalite, which we stood up in December. That specifically targets antisemitism in this country. We have charged six people since we stood up that special operation. But I want to take this opportunity to thank the community. When we stood up the special operation, we went particularly to the Jewish community and asked them to assist us and to work together in partnership with us in relation to how we could specifically target the right areas. So I want to take this opportunity to thank the community for their partnership with us.
Senator Farrell: Senator Roberts asked a question earlier and I took it on notice. The question that you asked the Attorney-General needs to be directed to the Department of Home Affairs.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. That’s the quickest answer I’ve ever got on questions on notice.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZBGk1hCRIxI/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2025-02-03 17:56:172025-02-13 14:49:022SM Radio with Chris Smith
