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Speaking in Support of Community TV

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Community TV provides a vital service to small business, to communities, and to developing future workers in the broader TV & Radio sector. It provides a training ground for emerging talent and provides programmes with heart. If it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have this ‘free’ hands-on training ground for students.

Across refreshingly propaganda-free community television and radio, 17,000 volunteers and almost 1,000 employees generate $250 million in value each year. The federal government contributes $43 million each year towards the cost, or rather, the taxpayers do. I wish more recipients of government (taxpayer) funding demonstrated such a positive return on investment.

The bipartisan approach of the Lib-Lab Uniparty is jeopardising the future of Community TV. Why? Because mainstream TV desires the viewership, and telecommunication companies covet the bandwidth.

Welcome to Australia, where the power lies in the hands of foreign shareholders of television and telecommunication companies. If the government genuinely intended to counter the powerful financial sway of telecommunication and broadcast companies, it would have supported my amendment, which sought a guarantee that Community TV would always have free-to-air bandwidth.

The impending digital restack will involve moving broadcast television channels closer together to free up a sizable, contiguous band section of bandwidth, which will then be sold to telecommunication companies. Taxpayers stand to make over a billion dollars from the sale, while telecommunication companies will profit significantly more.

Community TV is likely to disappear permanently due to the interests of telecommunication companies and mainstream mouthpiece media.

Transcript

One Nation supports the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Community Television) Bill 2024. Across community television and radio, 17,000 volunteers and almost 1,000 employees generate $250 million in value each year, every year. The federal government contributes $43 million towards the cost—or, I should say, the taxpayers do. I wish there were more recipients of government funding—taxpayer funding—with that good a return on investment. 

In 2017, the national network of community TV stations was attracting more than one million unique viewers a week. Top programs were attracting 400,000 viewers, including off-peak repeats in the week of release. In 2024, those ratings would rank in the top 20 of free-to-air and cable shows. That’s why Malcolm Turnbull destroyed community TV, moving channels off free to air to an online model where a commercial business plan was impossible, thus returning a million viewers a week to commercial television, which was suffering from falling ratings and advertising revenue. Channel 31 and C44 in Adelaide resisted and were saved as a result of work by One Nation and the Greens. Ratings on free-to-air television have fallen since 2017 in terms of the percentage of available screens because mainstream television is mostly absolute rubbish, completely lacking in the creativity and anarchy that attracted such a large and loyal following to stations like C31. Community TV is at times weird and wonderful. Programs with heart and soul have been replaced with commercial programs devoid of those very qualities. 

The small cost of community TV must be considered in the wider context. Community TV provides a training ground for talent, scriptwriters, make-up artists, producers, directors, sound and lighting. The former TVS in Sydney was based out of the University of Western Sydney school of media in Kingswood, offering students both theoretical and practical tuition. C31 is based out of RMIT in Melbourne. The now closed C31 in Brisbane included programming using students from the Queensland University of Technology. Mainstream television look for graduates of community television when hiring staff. If community TV did not exist then the taxpayers would be on the hook for vocational education training places to teach those skills.  

As a result of the closure of all states except Melbourne and Adelaide, small businesses across the country have been deprived of the opportunity to access advertising on broadcast television. Many brands have grown their business and community TV and now find advertising on commercial TV is unaffordable. Often small business can’t even get a TV advertising salesman to return their calls.  

This legislation, which extends C31 and C44 licences into the future is welcome. Yet it’s half a solution. Community TV deserves to get their broadcast rights back in the upcoming digital television restack promise for 2024 and now apparently some years away, so it’ll survive for a while. The restack will involve moving our broadcast and television channels closer together to free up a large contiguous section of bandwidth that would then be sold off to telcos. The taxpayers will make north of $1 billion out of the sale; telcos will make much much more.  

There we have it. Community TV is likely to disappear permanently because the interests of mainstream mouthpiece media and telcos have aligned against it. Mainstream TV want the viewers; telcos want the bandwidth. Welcome to Australia where the power is in the hands of foreign shareholders of television and telecommunication companies, and everyday Australians just don’t matter. Our kids are getting free hands-on tuition in television production does not seem to matter. Having a channel that doesn’t offer propaganda and prurient rubbish doesn’t seem to matter.  

It’s disappointing that Minister Rowland declined to support my second reading amendment, which I had intended to foreshadow to guarantee bandwidth for community TV in the upcoming digital restack. I understand the argument the government is using. There’s an inquiry into the future of free-to-air broadcasting—also called over-the-top broadcasting. Committing to community TV now though does get ahead of the inquiry findings. But, so what? If there was any real intention on the part of the government to go against the powerful financial influence of telcos and broadcast stations, the government would have supported my amendment.  

The government, sadly, is not prepared to guarantee one tiny little bit of bandwidth for community TV. One Nation is prepared to make that guarantee because we are not beholden to the foreign predatory billionaires and their wealth funds. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I urge community TV and radio to continue broadcasting. As the people’s media, you perform a vital service. Thank you.  

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Is the ABC encouraging a race war?

While Local Alice Springs ABC reporters have been congratulated, the ABC has had to apologise for unbalanced reports from its capital city journalists that falsely left the impression a meeting of locals was about white supremacy.

Adding to that, the ABC presents Bruce Pascoe’s ‘Dark Emu’ book filled with exaggerations and some outright lies about aboriginal history on an education site for kids. The ABC receives over $1 billion of your money every year to present fair and balanced reporting, it doesn’t seem like value for money to me.

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ICAC, Scott Morrison and Freedom

I spoke to Marcus Paul about a big week in Parliament. As usual the media are up to their tricks while we’re focused on getting freedom back for Australians.

Transcript

Nice to talk to you.

Same here.

Now, of course, I have to ask being that it’s such a big story at the moment, the issue with Jacqui Lambie, did you leak her personal phone number?

I did not. I did not.

Okay.

How can you leak something that’s already been public? Jacqui Lambie published her phone number in 2014, publicly on her Facebook page. She did it again multiple times in 2019 election campaign. Marcus, you cannot leak something that’s already in the public domain. It’s not private if it’s in the public domain. She’s been telling lies because look, this is the way I see it.

Sure.

She came out and savagely attacked Pauline Hanson and was wrong in many aspects. Even before,

Yeah.

That was on Monday after Pauline spoke very well about her anti-discrimination bill. But Jacqui Lambie was public in saying that she was against injection mandates sometime ago, months ago. And then she suddenly changed and became savagely opposite. And here she was savaging Pauline Hanson, and just making, in what many people said, was a complete fool of herself. And here’s what happened. She posted her speech on her Facebook page and her Facebook page overwhelmingly condemned her. And I’m guessing that Jacqui is quite startled by what happened. She’s put her foot in it. And she’s now trying to distract from that mess that she’s created. Don’t blame me. As Jacqui said on Monday, take responsibility for your statements. Jacqui, you made your bed, you lie in it.

All right, well it’s not just One Nation that she’s had a crack at. She’s, she’s wielded the stick towards everybody this week, including the prime minister. She was scathing of Scott Morrison as well. That happened just today after she attacked One Nation.

Well, you know, I don’t know what she said about Scott Morrison, but Scott Morrison has not been telling the truth either. I mean, the man is running around the country, telling people that we don’t have injection mandates in this country. That is a complete lie. The federal government enables the states to have injection mandates because it supplies the health data that the state governments rely on to enforce those injection mandates. The federal government is completely wrong in this.

Yeah.

It’s going against the constitution. We know of people in Airservices, which is the arm looking after the aviation fleet that looks after the politicians aircraft.

Right, yeah.

And they have been told they must get injected. Now that’s that goes against the Australian constitution. Scott Morrison is a marketing man. He’s not a leader. He has been bullied and he’s been bullying people. And some of the state premiers are the same. Annastacia Palaszczuk, Dan Andrews, these people are bullies. They’re not leaders. Leaders get data, listen to people, create a vision and then draw people with them. These people are pushing people. They’re injecting people, forcibly, coercively. These are not leaders. These are bullies and they’re liars.

Alright. Of course, it’s all about vaccine mandates. Now I know that obviously, you’ve, and One Nation have been fighting against them. I was surprised, I have to say, to see Matt Canavan was one of those liberal nationals from the LNP who crossed the floor and he’s been speaking out against the vaccine mandates as well.

Matt’s very astute. He’s a very good speaker. He’s very good with the media. He’s very, very colourful and clever. He does things sometimes and then says the opposite. He, it depends. He’s a bit like Shorten in that Shorten would say one thing in Melbourne and another thing, no, I’m serious. Another thing in central Queensland, when he visited central Queensland with regard to coal. Well Matt’s similar, he’s very, very clever. Look, he’s very intelligent. He’s very astute, but I don’t trust him. But what he’s doing, and I think he’s sincere on this one, but what he does is he pays very close attention to what Pauline and I say, there’s no doubt about that. And he comes out and takes some of our statements, our topics, our policies, because he knows that what we do is we build policies based upon what the people are saying and what people need. We listen to the people. So we’re in tune with the people, and Matt in the National Party, can’t do that because he’s locked into a government that is destroying this country.

Well, it’s destroying itself at the moment because of that.

So what Matt’s done, say what.

It’s destroying itself at the moment because of that,

Yes, it is! It is!

It’s imploding. Before our eyes.

Have you heard the latest question?

Tell me.

Will the death of the Liberal Party be attributed to COVID or to suicide?

Dear oh dearie me.

And it’s the same as with the media. The legacy media, Marcus, is turning into a circus. People don’t trust you anymore. I’m not saying you, I’m talking about the legacy media, you know, and I have a name like, I understand you had a crack at me a couple of days ago, which is your prerogative about Jacqui Lambie. Now Jacqui Lambie is telling, making false statements and false claims in the parliament, and you sided with her without understanding the data. I don’t call people in that position journalists, I call them turnalist. You turn lies into truth.

Well that’s why I did say in my comments that I would speak to you and get your side of the story. And that’s what I do on this programme. That’s why I’m chatting to you now, Malcolm.

That’s right. And I respect you and admire you for that, Marcus. That’s good.

You know, I was-

But there are so many legacy media journalists,

Yeah.

And the media is going down, media’s suiciding because people don’t trust the media anymore

No.

Because the media has become propagandists, become activists.

Yeah. Let’s look at this issue as well. There’s been some speaking of reportage, incorrect reporting that One Nation joined in defeating a proposed National Integrity Commission.

Bullshit! All right! Okay.

Bullshit.

Why?

We didn’t join with the government in defeating anything. There are basically, let’s for the sake of this argument, there are two types of motions. There are the bills that come up and legislation that is introduced largely by the government, because it is the government. That’s what the people decided.

Yeah

They’re introduced as legislation. You can side with the government or go against it. We have said very, very clearly, and we have done it every bill this week, we are opposing the government. We’re not just abstaining, going down the middle of the road. We are opposing the government to put pressure on this government to bring it to heel. Now, then there are other motions which are called procedural motions. Those things change the order of business for the day, and anybody can stand up and move a procedural motion, but they have to have the numbers. Now we then make our mind up on each of those according to the merits of the argument. What happened was that Rex Patrick moved a procedural motion to set aside standing orders and change the order of business to deal with the Integrity Commission Bill from Helen Haines.

Yeah.

It’s not a bad bill. You know, we’re inclined to support it with a couple of changes, but the vote was not on her bill. The vote was on whether or not to start discussing her bill. It was not appropriate for two reasons.

Okay.

First of all, there was other business, standard business in the Senate that needed to be addressed. Secondly, you can’t bring in an integrity commission debate without giving people notice to make speeches. We weren’t prepared.

Okay.

We’ve gotta do further work on it. So we stood up for the Senate and made sure that the Senate continued on it’s stable path. We didn’t wanna cause mayhem on that. And you can’t have an integrity commission coming in in five minutes, but there are certain things, Marcus, Pauline and I have both said that parliament has failed to look after itself. We need an integrity commission, but, we’ve also said we will not have something that puts politicians on display with no factual data and smears them and ridicules them, drags them through the mud, and then no charges at the end of it. I mean, some of these are just witch hunts, and that’s all they are. We’ve gotta have an integrity commission that has some guts, but also has some accountability to it.

All right, so in other words

At the moment, that’s not the case.

One Nation supports a national, federal integrity commission, but not as it’s currently being proposed. And you need more time to mull over if you like, any proposal and put forward any amendments that you might suggest would be a better option.

Correct.

So it’s not just a case, because I get a lot of, I’ll be honest with you and you obviously, the monitoring goes on and that’s fine. But a lot of people that might support this programme suggest to me, “Well, next time, can you ask Pauline why she votes against this? Can you ask Malcolm why they voted against that?” Why do they always seemingly side with the government, Malcolm?

Well that’s complete nonsense. We’ve just, there are two politicians in the Senate right now who are opposing every government bill until Scott Morrison ends the segregation and discrimination that is rampant in this country now in every state.

Yeah.

That’s me and Pauline. There are two other senators. That’s Gerrard Rennick. I’ll name them because I admire them for their courage and their integrity. Gerrard Rennick from Queensland in the Liberal Party, Alex Antic from South Australia in the Liberal Party who are abstaining. They’re abstaining right now, that’s putting a lot of

Well these rebel senators

Pressure on the government.

Well, you’re right. These rebel senators are causing headaches for Scott Morrison and his government.

Well see, it depends what you’re at, whether you’re journalists or turnalist. They’re not rebels. They’re doing their job. They’re revolting from, not revolting, but they’re not complying with dictates from the Liberal Party. Labor Party senators and MPS are gutless. They do not stand up for the people. They just cowtow the line with the Labor Party is pushing. Liberals. Most of them do the same, but some of them have a little bit of guts and courage. Rennick has got lots of guts and courage, and he’s got a lot of integrity, and he’s got a lot of sense. He’s a very intelligent man. Alex Antic is showing the same qualities and they are abstaining. Pauline and I are saying to hell with the government, you have to bring back freedom. It’s more, there are some bloody important bills, Marcus, that are coming up in the Senate. We will vote them down too even though they’re important to us because there’s something much more important. And that is freedom. Freedom is absolutely essential. And this country has gone to the dogs.

All right. Malcolm. You know I love chatting to you.

Mate, I’m still waiting.

Hmm, on?

I’m still waiting for you to bring someone who understands science, and a collection of stories and emotions mate, is not science. I’m happy to explain to you what science is and the importance of science.

I know what science is.

What is it?

Well, it’s a collation of obviously scientific evidence or proof that includes data, as you like to put it, empirical data that supports a point of view. But the thing is-

No, not a point of view.

Well…

You make a point of view based on the data.

Yeah.

It’s done within a logical framework to prove cause and effect.

But anybody can use different science, anybody can use different science to support their own point of view.

No you can’t, because it’s either it’s objective data. That’s the beauty of science.

Yeah.

Up until the scientific method was developed and refined people relied upon the biggest bully, the most intimidating politician, the most power, the money power, the most financial power, the most military power, the strongest people, the most dominant religion. That’s what made decisions. With the scientific method it suddenly became objective,

All right.

Which meant the weakest person in the world could have suddenly put forward an argument, and if he had, or she had the data and the logical sequence that proved cause and effect, they won the day, and that’s freed up people. Science is not just a highly disciplined objective approach to understanding the world and the understanding nature. It is fundamental to freedom. Freedom, and that’s what I started when I started on this campaign 12 years ago, that was, I sat down after 12 months of this and I thought, “Why am I doing this?” It’s something in the gut drove me. And I realised that the number one reason was for protecting freedom and restoring freedom.

Yeah.

That has now been destroyed in any scientific process and the political process.

So I’m just going through a couple of notes here. So Lambie off the Christmas card list, Canavan on it. Perfect. Malcolm, always good to chat. We’ll talk next week.

Same. Thanks, Marcus.

One Nation senator, Malcolm Roberts.

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Free Media dead in Australia

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As Government becomes more and more powerful, anyone who challenges the current policies is smeared and censored. The legacy media happily parrots the propaganda, afraid of losing government funding.

Transcript

This parliament’s descent into a one-party state could not have happened without the media’s complicity. The cancelling of Jessica Rowe’s interview with Senator Pauline Hanson is the latest manifestation of a power structure that George Orwell gave these words to in 1941 following a failed attempt to publish his seminal work Animal Farm: ‘The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics by employing veiled censorship. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.’

In 80 years, nothing has changed. Media and multinationals have the same wealthy owners who use their power to corral thought and enrich themselves. Orwell’s Animal Farm is a metaphor: animals overthrew their farmer to create a fairer society—only for that power to corrupt, leading to less freedom, with the pigs assuming the role of dictators. Ironically, not only are the media acting like the pigs in Animal Farm; the book has been wiped from our curriculum for the crime of making children think about the power paradigm. Our media are not some noble fifth estate; the media are a fourth column, advancing their billionaire owners’ interests at the expense of truth and integrity.

The only solution to the problem of media propaganda is introducing competition, removing federal support for commercial media and expanding the market through a ballot of spare spectrum open to only new media organisations. Instead of the media being protected under the power of their oligopolies, let the media earn their survival on the worth of their coverage. Instead of conflicted journalists promoting the orthodoxy, our community and our nation must have honest, independent journalists who challenge the orthodoxy. We have one flag, we are one community, we are one nation and we want our human rights and freedom restored.

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Media has no authority to call US election

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Transcript

I serve the people of Queensland in Australia. Yet, I’ve lived, worked and studied for five years in the USA and travelled through all 50 states. And I know that under the United States Constitution, the declaration of the polls in a presidential election is not made by the media nor by political parties and certainly not the commentariat. The Declaration of the poll is made by each state legislature. Pennsylvania has ordered a recount. Other states will follow because state legislatures are committed to counting every legal vote. As of today, not one legislature has declared a result and several states have now been precluded from declaring due to legal challenges to voting irregularities. This election won’t be resolved for weeks, so congratulating former Vice President Biden is premature. Now I understand the greens are getting excited that a Biden or Harris presidency will advance the socialist green agenda. What will this socialist green agenda do to the United States? It’ll raise power prices as unreliable solar and wind energy expands and destroys baseload power generation wiping out small and medium businesses and heavy industry. Under President Trump, heavy industry returned to the United States and brought high paying breadwinner jobs back for American workers. The Democrats green new deal will destroy those jobs forever. Americans thrown out of work by green policies will be forced onto a subsistence allowance from the government for the rest of their lives. This the greens have euphemistically named a universal basic income and basic it will be. According to Stanford University, these policies will destroy 4.9 million jobs and reduce America’s GDP by 2.9 trillion US dollars every year of a Biden or Harris presidency. This is news to most people that I talked to which is a damning indictment of the news media. The presentation of news is worse than just fake news. Mainstream media has devolved to being propaganda. President Trump’s greatest achievements, have been ignored by fake news. So let me remind every one of these the lowest black unemployment rate in history the lowest Hispanic unemployment rate in history, the lowest female unemployment rates since World War II, the highest number of black led business startups in history, the highest number of female led business startups in history, the first president in 30 years to not start a new war, five Nobel Peace Prize nominations for peace deals. The socialist takeover of America will destroy these gains
And end in misery.

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