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This exchange is about the Australian Border Force’s (ABF) response to asbestos found in the lift brake pads of imported wind turbines.

Mr Reynolds of the ABF explained that after discovering the issue, the ABF “doubled down” on efforts by implementing a specific screening profile to target at-risk shipments. From 1 December to 1 April, 42 matching consignments were intercepted.

35 were cleared via document-based risk assessment; 4 were referred for laboratory testing (all returned negative results), whilst 3 were held pending further documentation.

While Mr Reynolds could not explain how the original contaminated brake pads slipped past the border, he noted that the ABF relies on a combination of self-assessment by importers, risk-based targeting and severe financial penalties to deter illegal imports.

Fines for deliberately importing asbestos without a permit can reach up to $330,000 for individuals and $1.65 million (or 15 times the value of the goods) for companies.

Resolving the issue for contaminated turbines already operating in Australia falls under state government jurisdiction, not federal.

Mr Reynolds took several questions on notice, promising to look into whether the original importers committed a deliberate or accidental offence, whether any fines or prosecutions have been levied against them, and if any current prosecutions are outstanding regarding the operational turbines.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: This is about wind turbines that have been imported into Australia containing asbestos. Now that the asbestos in imported wind turbines has been identified, what’s been done to remedy the problem and prevent recurrence? 

Mr Reynolds: The issue was asbestos in the brake pads in lifts inside the wind turbines. What we put in place was what we call a ‘profile’ on the border to look for these products. Between 1 December and 1 April, the Australian Border Force recorded 42 consignments matching against profiles introduced a target asbestos risk because of that wind turbine issue. Of the 42 consignments, 35 were cleared by risk assessment of the documents by ABF officers. The Australian Border Force referred four shipments for laboratory testing. All four returned negative results and were subsequently released. The remaining three consignments are, as of 1 April, held pending provision of further assurance documentation. We’re actively managing that risk on the border. 

Senator ROBERTS: Are you actually inspecting the wind turbine brakes when they come in, or is it just done by risk assessment? 

Mr Reynolds: It’s both. We’ll make a determination based on that initial risk assessment, and, where required, where we have concerns, then we will refer those for the testing. 

Senator ROBERTS: Who does the testing? 

Mr Reynolds: I don’t have the name of the laboratory, but it is a nationally recognised laboratory. 

Senator ROBERTS: Your officers go to the site where the turbine brakes are stored, pending clearance, and then, if necessary, notify the testers. 

Mr Reynolds: What we’ll do is we will provide a direction that that consignment is to be tested. Then the consignment will go to the laboratory to conduct the testing. Depending on the results, we may seize that particular consignment or it will be released. 

Senator ROBERTS: How did this problem slip past the Australian Border Force? 

Mr Reynolds: Once we became aware of it, we were absolutely onto it. We’ve been testing for asbestos over a number of years. How these particular brake pads made it into the country, I could not tell you. What I can tell you, however, is that for any individual there is a $330,000 fine or three times the value of the goods and for any companies who are deliberately importing asbestos products without a permit it’s a fine of $1.65 million or 15 times the value of the goods. There are significant penalties under the customs regulations for bringing asbestos into the country without a permit. 

Senator ROBERTS: An importer of wind turbine brakes could just look at that and say to themselves: ‘What’s the risk assessment involved here? What’s the risk of getting caught?’ If it’s tiny, then it’s worth trying to flout the fines because they won’t get fined. They’ll do a risk assessment the other way. 

Mr Reynolds: What I’d offer to you is the fact that we have intervened with 42 consignments which came into the country in that five-month period between 1 December and 1 April. This would indicate that we’re absolutely applying all that we can at the border to look for asbestos coming into the country, including for the wind turbine lift brakes and any other asbestos product. 

Senator ROBERTS: That’s subsequent to them coming in without detection and being put into operation. You can’t tell me how that slipped past you. If you can’t tell me how, how do you know that what you’re doing now will get it all? I can understand you can’t possibly inspect every piece of equipment, every good and every item that gets imported by individuals or on major shipments and commercial loads. You have to use some kind of intelligence assessment and a risk assessment. I understand that. Have you changed practices? 

Mr Reynolds: Yes, that’s precisely what we have done. 

Senator ROBERTS: With the 42? 

Mr Reynolds: That’s exactly it. Because we recognised that there clearly were some asbestos products that made it into the country, we doubled down on our efforts to reduce the risk of any asbestos brake pads for wind turbine lifts getting into the country. I think the figures I’ve provided for you demonstrate that we are being effective in getting after it. 

Senator ROBERTS: I’m wondering how many other lapses there are, not just wind turbine brakes. Going back to this case: was there an offence committed by the importers or the purchasers by misdescription or omission? 

Mr Reynolds: You’d need the details of the importers for those particular lift brake pads, so I don’t have that for you here. I could take it on notice if that would be of assistance. 

Senator ROBERTS: If you could please. I’d like to know if it was deliberate or if it was sloppiness on the part of the importer. 

Mr Reynolds: Certainly. 

Senator ROBERTS: Have all contaminated wind turbines had the problem alleviated, Minister? 

Senator Watt: I don’t know that I can give you an across the board answer. I’m not sure whether the commissioner has any further information on that. 

Senator ROBERTS: Would that be your responsibility? I would have thought— 

Mr Reynolds: It’s a state responsibility to deal with that issue. 

Senator ROBERTS: How can I go about finding that out? 

Senator Watt: Well, you’ve got some MPs in the South Australian parliament; that might be a good place to start. 

Senator ROBERTS: And WA. 

Senator Watt: Oh yes; I forgot about that. 

Senator ROBERTS: And soon New South Wales. 

Senator Watt: I’m not sure they agree with you on fracking and a few other things, but, anyway, that’s another issue. 

Senator ROBERTS: We’re always listening to constituents, Senator Watt. We don’t just go blanket. 

Senator Watt: ‘Drill, baby, drill’ except in South Australia? 

Senator ROBERTS: Except in one electorate. 

CHAIR: If we could get back to questions, that would be really helpful. 

Senator DUNIAM: This is the entertainment. 

CHAIR: No, I am not here for the entertainment. 

Senator ROBERTS: I’m just going through my questions. The commissioner has answered most of them. What penalties or fines have been assessed for identified breaches? You’ve already told me the heftiness of the fines. Have any been levied on the importers in court? 

Mr Reynolds: To date, all of the consignments that we have reviewed and have referred for testing have been found not to contain asbestos. 

Senator ROBERTS: What about the ones that have been found and were in operation? 

Mr Reynolds: I’ll take that on notice and do my best to answer that question for you. 

Senator ROBERTS: In general, you’re there to apprehend illegal goods coming in illegally? 

Mr Reynolds: That’s right. 

Senator ROBERTS: If they get through the border and are put into operation, who is then responsible for enforcement? Is it someone else or is it you? 

Mr Reynolds: We can still apply the Customs Act for goods that have made it through the border. 

Senator ROBERTS: Do you have any prosecutions outstanding? 

Mr Reynolds: For asbestos related issues? 

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. 

Mr Reynolds: Not to my awareness. 

Senator ROBERTS: Was anyone prosecuted for the ones that were discovered in operation? 

Mr Reynolds: I think that is something that we can take on notice for you. 

Senator ROBERTS: The self-assessment of components by the importers is appropriate given your limited workforce and the extent of imports coming into Australia—the extent in terms of not only dollar value but the complexity of things today? 

Mr Reynolds: All importers have responsibilities as far as ensuring that they meet the legal requirements for the importation of goods into Australia, but we will conduct compliance checks on any goods over which we have a suspicion that it may be an illicit or prohibited product. 

Senator ROBERTS: So your way of protecting the borders, keeping the borders secure is to do inspections. That can’t cover everything, so you use risk assessments, put responsibility on the importers, and then try to protect that with hefty fines if someone is caught to make the cost of criminal or illegal imports prohibitive. 

Mr Reynolds: That’s a good summary. 

Senator ROBERTS: When I retire I’ll come and get a job with you. 

Senator Watt: There’s a merit process, Senator. 

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll pay that one. You were rejected, were you? 

Senator Watt: I thought you were going to ask me to be a referee. 

CHAIR: We’re full of comedians today. 

The UN’s dire financial situation could save Australia a fortune.

The United Nations is in a state of ‘imminent financial collapse’.

Apparently.

Their decline is moving at a glacial pace. Nations are drip-feeding them cash while the UN negotiates for structural change to how they handle money. Essentially, they want to keep more of it. No thanks.

Since its establishment in 1945, justified with a view to ‘maintain international peace, security, and develop friendly relations among states’, I believe the project has become an expensive failure that inflicts genuine harm on the world.

Far from solving the endemic social and economic problems besieging third-world nations, the presence of the UN – and its credit card – has turned misery and corruption into a sustainable industry further weaponised in the hands of powerful nations that govern themselves in contradiction to everything the UN claims to stand for.

Besides, if the goal is to gather all the nations together to ‘talk about things’ in a neutral space – they can hold a conference, like everyone else.

This is the modern world. We no longer require an Earth-sized bureaucracy to babysit dialogue.

Why is the UN in trouble?

The UN’s recent claims of economic strife come as a direct result of America protesting against its aggressive anti-capitalist, anti-democratic goals and dubious projects. In response, the US has withheld funds and exited key UN bodies.

President Donald Trump successfully sold the point to the American people that they should not pay for the comfort of those seeking the demise of the US hegemony.

That said, much like the fabricated Climate Crisis, the deadline for this UN economic disaster is poorly defined and frequently used as a donation rallying call.


Which is a shame, because the UN can’t collapse fast enough.

We may never be able to convince the ‘it’s just a piece of paper’ Coalition to pull out of the Paris Agreement or unsubscribe from the overreach of the World Health Organisation. If it were to fall apart on its own, the work would be done for us. Freedom is freedom, and we’re not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Still, there does seem to be some truth to the UN’s economic strife.

Everywhere you go, the global bureaucracy is shaking its charity tin next to politicians’ ears.

Unfortunately, an emotionally and morally weak Labor Party – along with a skittish Opposition – govern Australia. They are likely to reach into the pockets of Australian taxpayers to save this ideological failure that somehow dragged itself into our century.

To be clear: Australia must not save the UN.

Let it die. Let it rot.

Allow global politics to heal.

Is the UN really going bust?

Back in October of 2025, Secretary-General António Guterres penned letters to member states complaining about ‘the worst cash crisis in nearly a decade’. A month later, just over 70% of nations had coughed up their dues. The United States, which is unfairly carrying the burden of cost, owes something along the lines of $4 billion. President Donald Trump has little interest in giving them another cent. In response to the collapse of finances, the UN has threatened to shut down their headquarters in New York. Given New York is under communist occupation, it’s unlikely to bother anyone of significance.

Unfortunately, the UN still enjoys five-star travel, first-class flights, buildings occupying the most expensive real estate in European cities, and armies of bureaucrats that would make Stalin weep with envy.

This monstrosity is a long way from ‘tightening its belt’ and even further from dying.

It is sending out desperate cries for help to keep the status quo rather than presenting its financers – us – with a slimmed-down program of essential services. At no point has it tried to show us where genuine benefit can be found or assessed itself for situations where it poured a fortune of money into a situation only to make it worse. Despot nations don’t stop their genocides because the UN frowns in their direction. Indeed, we have seen crimes against humanity rewarded with some of the highest positions of power.

As reported by Fox News:

Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch, told Fox News Digital, ‘The UN elected Beijing’s and Tehran’s loyal agents as “human rights experts” – without a ballot, without shame. These regimes persecute minorities, jail anyone who speaks freely, and rule through fear and censorship. The committee that once drafted the UN’s anti-racism convention has now been captured by those who embody racism, repression, and the silencing of truth. It’s an inversion of human rights – and a stain on the United Nations itself.’

And more to the point, the UN does not believe it did anything wrong. This isn’t even its first moral catastrophe.

Do we need the UN?

If we are going to be completely honest, Australia and all of its Western allies would be significantly better off if the UN were to collapse completely.

Economically, socially, democratically, regionally, militarily – we stand to benefit.

Not only is the UN an expense, it has allowed third-world, communist, and despotic states to band together under the protection of a few like-minded states to wield very real global power they never would have achieved on their own.

Why does Hamas have influence on the streets of Sydney? It is absurd. And yet the thread of causality can be followed straight to the UN’s mass migration demand that forced nations like Australia to open its borders to individuals whose views and loyalty remain seated in foreign regimes that, in their free time, chant ‘death to the West’. And we can’t send them back, even if they swear allegiance to international terror groups or threaten to behead Australians in broad daylight. Far from repenting and offering to help Australia regain control of its national security, the UN actively restricts and obstructs our democratic efforts to protect innocent Australians. This is not okay.

UN rulings, policies, and programs have directly disadvantaged Australia, and we have no ability to stop them.

And contrary to what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in his recent pitch to place Australia on the UN Security Council, Australia has never had less influence as a middle power.

The organisation designed to hold world peace by stopping the influence of socialists, communists, fascists, and criminals has become a proxy for their goals.

China’s complex debt-trapping across the third-world, and other networks of influence, leave many of these nations voting as obedient blocs or the West’s most dangerous economic and cultural advisories. Meanwhile, members of other international alliances – Shanghai Cooperation Organisation etc – have already sworn to defy UN rulings. As some of their members hold veto power at the UN, these orbiting structures that circle the UN override its decisions without anyone noticing.

For example, if a nation decides slavery or child marriage is acceptable in defiance of the UN, the veto nation prevents the UN from acting against it. In return, that nation – almost always despotic – promises the votes and support of nations in other alliances. It’s like a disease holding the world’s tyrannies together that no one wants to talk about because they’re frightened Western power will evaporate if the curtain is pulled away.

Donald Trump has effectively asked why the West pays roughly 80% of the UN’s operational costs for the privilege of losing its strategic grip?

Have human rights advanced as a result of the UN – or does the organisation stand around and watch the Caliphate of Islamic terror creeping through African nations where Christians are tortured and executed?

It is not controversial to say that human rights are declining.

Part of the problem is that the UN spend all their time ‘monitoring’ like they ‘monitored’ the Rwanda genocide. Like they would monitor an attack on Australia or Taiwan. Always monitoring. The UN presents themselves as powerless, passive observers after tugging on all the strings.

When the fluffy language of ‘peace, nature, and aid’ are stripped back to the cold mechanics of the UN, it becomes a despotic, wasteful, dangerous, and bloated machine housing our rivals who watch our collapse while drinking champagne we paid for.

Australia receives no benefit from its membership – only punishment.

And if it were to collapse, every Western ally would find their hold over world power significantly strengthened. Trade, culture, and the threads of the Enlightenment would once again form the spine of power. Influence would hold on its merits, not shadowy backroom handshakes.

As for the money… It is difficult to feel sorry for the UN.

It has not occurred to the UN that the member states it’s trying to fleece might have more money for their bureaucracy if the UN hadn’t forced first-world countries into trillions of dollars of ‘climate expenditure’ which has eaten away their treasuries.

You can have Net Zero or a gravy train. Not both. And the UN might end up being a casualty of its own greedy policies.

Indeed, Trump coyly shrugged, indicating he didn’t know the US had slipped behind on its payments … then questioned if other nations could solve the problem ‘very quickly’ via paying their share. It is the same lesson he dished out to Nato.

It was then that the US Secretary of State, Macro Rubio, cocked an eyebrow and asked, ‘What is the purpose of the UN?’ Bewildered journalists stared back dumbly.

‘The UN is supposed to be a place where you can peaceably resolve global conflict … right now you have [Iran] who unlawfully, criminally, and illegally taking possession of an international waterway.’

Looks like the US might want something tangible for the tens of billions they’ve poured into the UN over the years.

Donald Trump was far harsher a year or so ago when he spoke from their own podium:

‘Not only is the UN not solving the problems it should – too often – it is actually creating new problems for us to solve. The best example is the number one political issue of our time: the crisis of uncontrolled migration. It’s uncontrolled. Your countries are being ruined. The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders.’

And that is exactly what Australia has done, at huge cost to the taxpayer, mostly under the watch of the Coalition, and with Angus Taylor in his former role of Energy Minister.

The US has since withdrawn from 31 UN agencies to ‘end American taxpayer funding and involvement in entities that advance globalist agendas over US priorities’.

Australian politicians are still begging at the door, trying to get in.

Something tells me Trump will watch the financial collapse of the UN with a smile and it may go down in history as one of his greatest victories over the undemocratic institutions that have manipulated, impoverished, and damaged Western nations.

They have created a class war between nations and a true global ‘democracy’ free to oppress without the safeguards of a constitution, bill of rights, or benevolent monarch. The UN is merely one of many national ‘collectives’ of negotiating blocs where individual leaders, who often came to power without real elections, shape the future of a world where no citizen has a say over the direction of global politics. In short, terrifying.

What does the UN cost the nations of the world?

Its core bureaucracy operates on a (slimmed down) budget of $3.5 billion while ‘everything with a UN tag on it across the world’ sits between $66-75 billion depending on the year. This is an estimate. The true cost is largely unknown.

Then there is the other question … what costs did the UN’s existence create to domestic budgets?

Those are costs so terrifying and vast, they have settled around Australia like a heavy sea fog clinging to the coast. Since 1950, AI estimates the UN has cost global budgets $150 trillion in UN-inspired projects or direct funds. How much of this money benefitted the taxpayers who had it taken from them? I would go so far as to say the UN is the chief culprit in Australia’s present state of economic anguish. It is certainly the reason our business landscape was torn apart during Covid hysteria and our rainforests are being blown up for wind turbines and solar panels.

Generations of Prime Ministers were either scammed, pressured, enticed, lured, or tricked into adopting UN policy goals that have thoroughly screwed Australia.

Worse? They’re not even sorry about it.

Too many of these political leaders continue to protect the UN as some international moral touchstone and would throw money at its collapsing infrastructure knowing full well that cash forms a slush fund for despots, dictators, and terrorists in the third-world.

As we speak, Western money – in the billions – is being poured into Islamic terror states or regions under occupation. Afghanistan, under control of the Taliban, not only receives humanitarian aid while it abuses women and girls with ever more disgusting policies, Azerbaijan invited a Taliban contingent to COP26, COP27, COP28, and COP29 to hunt around for hundreds of millions in ‘climate finance’. In Gaza, UN-branded aid workers were confirmed as either taking part or assisting in hostage-taking and terror activities while unknown amounts of aid either kept terrorists alive or helped furnish their armouries. Yemen, Syria, and Iran all have similar problems with 80-90% of aid hitting the bank accounts of terrorists.

These regimes are effectively farming their own people for poverty to cash in on Western aid. They have no incentive to fix their countries. Indeed, the UN actively encourages them to make the situation worse.

Politicians with an ideological commitment to multilateralism wrap the UN in virtue to protect a narrative of global governance that is just as fake and cynical as the climate apocalypse.

They will stand before voters and preach ‘world peace’ while money they donate from the Treasury lines some violent thug’s palace with gold and our own citizens sleep on the street.

Australian taxpayers subsidise foreign terrorists while hosting Royal Commissions into terrorist acts that are themselves prevented from reaching the truth by the UN ‘social cohesion’ guidelines that ensure people remain peaceful while they are picked off by ‘lone wolves’ with ‘no motive’. Many of these politicians expect to exit politics and personally benefit from the UN platter of job offers. Protecting the UN is in personal interest – a paddock where politicians graze for a few years to fatten their bank balances.

The hypocrisy of the UN goes on… At the height of the ‘climate panic’, reports released showed UN officials spending tens of millions flying around the world first class while staying in five-star hotels. Employees and bureaucrats were living the high life on money that was meant to be spent on ‘world peace’.

In 2017, it was even reported that World Health Organisation staff broke the rules with their combined travel costs exceeding some of their disease budgets. In another corner of the UN, one former head spent half a million on travel.

As always, the people most concerned about the ‘climate crisis’ are least concerned about their so-called ‘carbon footprint’. It’s no wonder no one says anything about the superyachts or private jets arriving for conferences. This behaviour has been normalised.

When the UN Secretary-General says, ‘We simply must find a lasting solution for recurring liquidity problems!’

My reply would be: ‘Shut it down – forever. Problem solved.’

While I agree that protecting our natural environment is a duty of government, I completely disagree with Senator Pocock’s definition of “protection.” The rush toward net zero is not saving our environment; it’s state-sponsored vandalism.

Here is the reality of what net zero is doing to Australia:

✖️ Creating unmanaged havens for pests that will devastate native flora and fauna while destroying food production because of “carbon-dioxide
farming.”

✖️ 205,000 hectares of farmland and native forests will be required to be cleared for wind turbines, 1.25 billion solar panels installed and the carving out of 20,000 kilometres of 75-metre-wide transmission easements through national forests.

✖️ Transmission line costs have blown out from an initial $8.5 billion estimate to upwards of $120 billion, and likely over $200 billion. When you add the generators, the total net zero cost sits at around $350 billion. Financed with high-cost loans over 35 years, this will ultimately burden taxpayers with a bill exceeding $1 trillion.

I have stood in these forests myself. I have seen developers blowing the tops off mountains to install massive concrete turbine bases. Offshore wind is no better. Data shows these marine turbines slow the wind, trap heat at the sea surface, disrupt marine life (including whales) with sediment and noise, shed microplastics and kill birds.

It’s not possible for anyone to look at Australia’s beautiful landscapes scarred with wind turbines, solar panels, access roads and transmission lines and think: no damage here; this is beautiful? No, it’s not. It’s vandalism.

We cannot put the tops back on the mountains that have been destroyed by this insanity.

This is literally killing the environment to save it.

One Nation will protect our beautiful landscapes from net zero vandalism.

One Nation is the true party of the environment.

Transcript

One Nation agrees with Senator Pocock that protection of the natural environment is a fundamental duty of any government. I do, though, disagree with Senator Pocock on the definition of environmental protection. ABARES executive director Dr Jared Greenville said last December that research indicates that projected land-based carbon sequestration goals for our net zero transition will require sequestration projects across 18 million hectares by 2050. While some of this land is co-used, agricultural land locked up for carbon credits is not environmental land. Inevitably it becomes a refuge for pests which infect local farms and devastate native fauna and flora. Carbon dioxide farming is the enemy of the natural environment and the enemy of food production. 

Add to this total the 205,000 hectares of farmland and native forests which are being clear felled for the construction of wind turbines and access roads, plus the land for the 1.25 billion solar panels needed to reach net zero—that’s billion with a ‘b’. Then add the 20,000 kilometres of new transmission lines necessary to take power from where it is being generated to where it is needed. Each transition line runs through an easement, usually 75 metres wide, of clear felled land. In 2020 the AEMO cost estimate for most of the transmission line projects was $8.5 billion. Now the transmission line cost is estimated to be at least $120 billion and is more likely to blow out beyond $200 billion. Add another $160 billion for wind and solar generators and we have a $350 billion net zero cost being financed with high-cost loans, which in turn blows out the total 35-year outlay to above $1 trillion. 

For environmentally destructive projects like Snowy 2 and for most of the wind projects in North Queensland, those transmission easements run through forests of national significance. I’ve been there, in the very forests this motion is calling to protect. They’re the same projects in which so-called green environmentalists are installing wind turbines and blowing the tops off mountains to make space for the huge concrete bases of massive wind turbines. 

Here’s what I don’t understand. Here’s a sensible motion about the need to protect our beautiful environment, yet the motion ignores the massive environmental damage from net zero measures. How can anyone look at one of Australia’s beautiful landscapes scarred with wind turbines, solar panels, access roads and transmission lines and think: no damage here; this is beautiful. No, it’s not. It’s vandalism. This is not just happening on land. Offshore wind turbines harm the environment. A new study in Science Advances shows that offshore wind turbines actually warm the sea surface. Turbines slow the wind. This weakens mixing, shuts down upwelling and in turn traps heat at the surface. This changes the microclimate for more than 10 kilometres behind and stirs up sediment which interferes with marine life, including whales. Add this to bird kills, underwater noise and microplastic shedding and the picture is clear: offshore wind isn’t solving an environmental problem; it’s creating one. This does not even take into account the environmental cost of manufacture, transport, insulation, maintenance, decommissioning, disposal and remediation of massive wind turbines. 

One Nation will care for the natural environment. We will ensure that the land is in the hands of the best stewards: farmers. We will cancel the entire project and protect those beautiful landscapes from net zero vandalism, returning land, where possible, to its best use, be that farming or native forests. Unfortunately, we can’t put the tops back on mountains. That damage is there for eternity—a testament to hubris and the tragedy of the paradox of virtue. It’s the killing of the environment in the name of saving the environment. One Nation is now the party of the environment.  

One Nation strongly opposes the Albanese government’s plan to remove the private health insurance rebate for older Australians (65+).

Removing these rebates will ultimately cost taxpayers billions more than it will save and will put immense strain on the public hospital system.

One Nation rejects the government’s “intergenerational fairness” narrative. It is nothing more than a diversion.

The true causes of financial hardship for Australian people are immigration, net-zero policies, inflation and high living costs.

Rather than cutting health rebates for the elderly, we should stop mass migration and abandon all net-zero targets, which will help ALL Australians.

Transcript

I thank Senator Ruston for this motion, which One Nation supports. Currently, all Australians get a rebate on their contributions to private health insurance. For the people under 65, it is 24.1 per cent, for those 65-69 years of age it is 28.1 per cent and for those over 70 it is 32.2 per cent. These are adjusted for income. Minister Butler described the system as ‘not fair between generations’. The government has announced the additional amount paid to our elderly will be removed, making everyone equal. How very communist and how self-defeating. The rebate is higher the older you get, because the cost to the taxpayer of a person moving from private to public care is higher the older they get. The extra payment encourages older Australians to stay in the private health system and save the taxpayers from having to carry the full cost of their health care. 

Across forward estimates, this measure will cost taxpayers—including young people—billions more than it saves, and it will put more pressure on public hospitals already dealing with bed block and long waiting times. Our young people will not always be young. A measure that helps more than three million older Australians today will help younger Australians tomorrow. 

The Albanese government is promoting division in order to set one age group against another. How dishonest! Classic communism! This is the politics of envy, designed to cover up the real reasons young people are struggling, which are immigration, net zero, grocery prices, energy prices, inflation—destroying industry, making lives harder and robbing our young of the opportunity to own their own homes, to enjoy the life that my generation enjoys. To pitch to younger voters, start there. Introduce negative immigration until housing and infrastructure catches up, reducing house prices. Terminate this net zero madness and let business get on with creating breadwinner jobs that provide a future for our young. 

Intergenerational wealth transfer is a term that is a furphy, a lie, a dishonest diversion. Labor is crippling the young. In reality, this is an excuse from Labor to increase taxes on people with assets who, after a lifetime of work, are the older generations. Remember, today’s young adults are the future older people. This aims to hit all Australians, including the young. You will eventually get hit. This is a lie that is masquerading to steal more taxes. One Nation will unwind this petty, dishonest, counterproductive measure. We are one nation, one community and One Nation will not set one Australian against another.  

No, Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan, it is not just ‘a piece of paper’.

We’ve heard it before. A cataclysmic policy or international agreement disguised as performative, symbolic, or ‘a piece of paper’.

Anthony Albanese used this underhanded trick during the Voice to Parliament when he claimed the Uluru Statement from the Heart was ‘on an A4 bit of paper – that’s it!’ as if the Prime Minister had somehow forgotten the legislative burden of a parallel race-based Parliament and its entourage of discriminatory instructions, untold billions of cost, and the destruction of ‘equal citizenship’ – forever. To call it ‘a bit of paper’ was a lie.

This point does not need to be laboured. State-based Treaties enacted in defiance of the referendum result have demonstrated the true civic and economic cost.

Which brings us to an even more egregious violation of the truth – this time from the Coalition’s leadership team of Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan.

On a special episode of Sky News Australia, Taylor was asked by a voter (Brett) why the Coalition doesn’t get out of the Paris Agreement if they are serious about ending the Net Zero agenda.

‘We will get rid of Net Zero – we are not proposing to get out of the Paris Agreement because, frankly, it’s not going to change anything we do.’

When One Nation National Executive Director Lee Hanson asked Nationals Leader Matt Canavan to ‘please explain’, he said:

Net Zero is not in the Paris Agreement at all. We signed up to the Paris Agreement in 2015. Net Zero didn’t come along until years later … it’s just a piece of paper.’

Significantly worse, when pressed again by Andrew Bolt, Canavan added:

‘We don’t have time for side quests … we don’t have time for symbolic gestures … keep in mind, it’s very important to make the point that Net Zero is not enshrined in the Paris Agreement.’


Parties aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible … so as to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century…


There are slight variations in wording, so let us look at the definition of ‘Net Zero’ as laid out in the IPCC glossary:

Unless Taylor and Canavan wish to challenge the IPCC and our international partners on the definition of Net Zero, let us put to rest the misleading idea that it does not appear in the Paris Agreement.

It does.

According to Onassis, Farhana Yamin is credited with ‘getting the goal of Net Zero emissions by 2050 into the 2015 Paris Agreement’ and was a key IPCC architect. She later joined Extinction Rebellion. Even Wikipedia says, ‘Net Zero was basic to the goals of the Paris Agreement’ with the IPCC’s follow-up to Paris, the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5*C, popularising Net Zero as a short-hand for the phrase already used in the original document.

This is not in dispute by anyone except, perhaps, the Coalition, who are afraid that admitting the Paris Agreement’s role in tying Australia to Net Zero weakens their political chances against One Nation.

As Canavan rightly said on First Edition eight months ago, ‘I think we should sort this issue out – that would be ideal. I think we should have a debate in the joint party room about our position on Net Zero emissions. The Liberal and National party room has never debated Net Zero emissions despite it being perhaps the most radical socialist plan ever envisioned for the Australian economy.’

If they wish to be honest with the Australian people, whose trust they are attempting to rebuild, they might try admitting that the Paris Agreement exists to codify and coerce the global acceptance of Net Zero into domestic legislation.

And that is exactly what Australia has done, at huge cost to the taxpayer, mostly under the watch of the Coalition, and with Angus Taylor in his former role of Energy Minister.

Far from being ‘symbolic’ or ‘just a piece of paper’, its reach extends so deep into our Treasury and economic system that the Coalition simply lacks the moral fortitude and political ability to claw back control of our energy system and sovereignty.

Paris is not ‘a gesture’, it is the scaffolding that keeps a near-unknowable compliance cost hanging over the Treasury. The Coalition cannot meet its promise to end Net Zero without pulling out of Paris, and it is our opinion that they know this.

The sheer economic burden of ‘Paris’ is the largest silent line item in the Budget, and that does not include the stealth tax it takes from businesses and private citizens as a ‘green cost’ on power bills, additional requirements, or straight-out costs.

What is the Paris Agreement?

It is a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by 195 parties at the United Nations Climate Conference (Cop21) in Paris, 2015. According to its official webpage, it requires economic and social transformation which works on a five-year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by countries. This includes a pledge to reduce ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ regarding greenhouse emissions, and to report on them. Developed nations are ‘encouraged’ to – and do – provide ‘climate finance’ to developing nations. It ‘encourages’ the uptake of green technologies.

Australia then went ahead and formalised this. The Paris Agreement is responsible, directly, and continues to underpin many things, including…

The Climate Change Act 2022, which legislates reduction targets and Net Zero goals. This document holds us, legally, to the Paris Agreement’s statements. This alone includes tens of billions in climate money and references Powering Australia, Rewiring the Nation, and Household Energy Upgrade Fund along with the Powering the Regions Fund, Hydrogen Headstart Program, National Reconstruction Fund, National Electric Vehicle Strategy, Critical Minerals Strategy, APS Net Zero 2030, National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy, Disaster Ready Fund, Australia’s Strategy for Nation, Australian Carbon Credit Units, Safeguard Mechanism, Australian Sustainable Finance Strategy (Sovereign Green Bonds), Net Zero Economy Authority, and the Native Positive Plan. Net Zero Authority which was setup ‘to promote the orderly and positive economic transformation associated with achieving Net Zero emissions’ and its Net Zero Economy Agency and Advisory Board.

And then we have an extensive (but not exhaustive) list of government agencies involved with/tied to the Paris Agreement: Department of Climate Change, AEMO, Clean Energy Regulator, Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Clean Energy Innovation Fund, Australian Renewable Energy Agency, The Climate Change Authority, BOM, and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet – Net Zero Agency.

A hell of a lot of ‘symbolic gestures’, I think you’d agree.

And this does not include any of the state initiatives, the reporting structures, the additional international agreements attached to Paris, or any of the small legal requirements placed upon business.

As I am certain Angus Taylor and Matt Canavan are aware, ‘pulling out of Paris’ means admitting to the extent of its influence.

This is not a piece of paper that can be torn up. Nor is our greatest concern, as Canavan suggested, ‘creating international tension’.

‘We shouldn’t just go around ripping up international agreements for no benefit to our own country … all it would do is create friction with other countries.’ – Canavan

The truth is – no one knows how much the Paris Agreement has cost this country.

There is no ledger or register, and certainly no way of assessing the loss of income and rise of costs due to the influence of Paris on our energy, infrastructure, mining, transport, agriculture, and private sectors.

The taxpayer cost since the Paris Agreement was signed sits at more than $100 billion with the total cost to the public and private sector expected to top $1 trillion by 2050.

An expensive bit of paper…

This is only an estimate assuming the industrial projects succeed. The cost blow-out of Snowy 2.0 and litany of failed or abandoned green projects (such as the Sun Cable), show how easy it is for a Budget to understate the true delivered cost.

And we should note, none of these costings include the replacement of short-lived renewable energy or the recycling/disposal cost. Both of which are assumed to be huge. Nor does it take into account the additional costs of things like … upgrading the entire continent for EV chargers and all the infrastructure that goes along with it or paying out the countless Indigenous land claims that might take place along the regional routes of energy networks.

Despite living in an acute financial crisis with Australians facing homelessness or levels of poverty not seen since their great-grandparents, the Paris Agreement – through our domestic legislation – compels us to gift billions of dollars in ‘climate aid’ to developing nations. We cannot afford this and the only reason we do it is a piece of paper. Australia is giving billions of dollars to the Pacific for a climate crisis that does not exist while the same nations take money from China, the world’s largest polluter, in exchange for resources and military perks. At least Beijing gets something meaningful in return.

These foreign aid groups tied to Paris include, Pacific Climate Infrastructure Financing Partnership, REnew Pacific, Pacific Resilience Facility, Australian Humanitarian Partnership Disaster READY Program, Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific, Weather Ready Pacific, Pacific Insurance and Climate Adaptation Programme, Climate Finance Access Network, Kiwa Initiative, Pacific Blue Carbon Program, Governance for Resilient Development, SPREP Core Funding, and whatever that AFL team and stadium come under…

This takes place while Australian farmers cannot secure insurance for flood or fire, are stuck with dirt roads and sub-quality energy, and cannot build something as simple as a dam or fence without excessive interference and added costs.

And yet we gift these things – and more – to other nations with the money our poor farmers give to the Treasury.

It’s easy to see why Donald Trump made pulling out of Paris a priority. The US received no punishment for doing so and has enjoyed a significant trade and economic boom since. They have already saved billions while not receiving any tariffs or sanctions. The worst you could say is they lost the prestige of ‘climate leadership’ but with the world’s worst emitter – China – crowned as a leader, who wants that title?

Why pull out of Paris? Why indeed.

‘I’m immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off. The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.’ – Trump

Don’t worry. Shortly after ditching ‘Net Zero 2050’, the Coalition are now getting rid of ‘Net Zero’ entirely without unpicking any of the Net Zero infrastructure and still reporting this non-change in line with the Paris agreement.

At this point, the Coalition appear to be climate cult alcoholics, pledging to attend AA meetings to keep the voters happy and then catching up at the pub. That’s okay, because they’re in the meetings. The pub is ‘just a place’. It doesn’t mean anything. Some people don’t drink at the pub. Refusing to pull out of Paris is a failure of grand old Australian tradition of the ‘Pub Test’.

This week, we have watched the Coalition rightly mock the Prime Minister for ‘changing his position’ on tax policy within the Budget – and yet how is this different to Canavan’s statements?

On June 14, Canavan posted the result of a vote from the NSW Young National Metropolitan Branch that read:

57 Paris Agreement

That Conference call on The Nationals to advocate for the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement to: a) restore national control over emissions targets and energy policy, and; b) ensure access to affordable and reliable energy, food, and manufactured goods for the Australian people.

Canavan’s post discussed Net Zero and Paris as if they were intrinsically linked.

In a Courier Mail article where Canavan admits ‘we never conducted a full cost-benefit analysis of adopting Net Zero’ he adds ‘Trump is at least doing what he says and has pulled out of the Paris Agreement’.

In a post from 2025, Canavan said to a man who runs a food distribution company, ‘Hopefully he encourages more business people to say what they really think, including if they think we should get out of the Paris Agreement SCAM.’

Is it a piece of paper or a scam?

‘Australia should leave the Paris Agreement. Ever since we signed up to Net Zero, we have had soaring prices, skyrocketing interest rates, and witnessed most other nations completely ignoring their commitments.’

Perhaps we should finish with Canavan’s words.

‘Now that the world’s biggest economy [the US] has pulled out of the Paris Agreement, it is just common sense – and a matter of time – that everyone else does too.’ And ‘There is no reason Australia should remain in Paris when China, India, Indonesia, and now the US, are not.’

Quite so, Matt, we completely agree.

It is a shame you ‘changed your position’ after moving from a spirited backbencher to co-leader in an opposition dominated by the Liberal Moderates who have made their commitment to both Net Zero and the Paris Agreement quite clear.

We cannot know if this is a genuine change of heart or a political concession to a Coalition partner hunting down Teal seats at the expense of the nation. (A doomed and dishonest venture by the Moderates who will never win back Blue Ribbon seats while misleading the taxpayer about Climate Change politics.)

However, it seems obvious a Coalition government, without One Nation to keep it honest, has no intention of ending Net Zero – not in the legislative ways that matter.

One Nation aims to increase domestic oil and gas exploration and production by partnering with the industry rather than restricting it. Our goal is to secure greater financial returns for Australians, lower energy prices, and reduce government debt through direct state investment rather than new taxes or forced reservations.

By financially backing exploration and taking an equity share, our aim is to boost fuel security and give Australians “real ownership” of their natural resources.

Transcript

Well, it’s a real honour to be with you today and especially to introduce my gas policy to you. I think it’s very important. I hope that you see in my policy, I have a vision for this country and I think it reflects in my gas policy, so let me share it with you.

Thank you to the Australian energy producers for having me at your 2026 conference. Today I will be announcing One Nation’s new oil and gas policy. This is a bold long-term vision that will give the Australian people vastly greater returns from their resources and align government objectives with our world-class gas industry.

Australia’s gas reserves are nothing short of a miracle. For a country with only 0.3% of the world’s population, we supply nearly 10% of the world’s exported gas. One Nation has always fought for a fair return for the Australian people on our country’s natural resources.

Australians are rightly unhappy. Despite our enormous resource wealth, ordinary families are not seeing the benefits in affordable energy, reduced debt or improved services. Public unrest is building because successive governments have failed to secure a fair share while pursuing policies that risk killing the industry that generates that wealth.

One Nation understands that gas doesn’t magically extract itself. Gas production is only possible with the expertise of the private industry. One Nation will work with industry as a partner, leveraging this expertise to get the most out of our incredible resources.

We want more gas, more oil and more energy to drive our economy forward, pay down our debts and secure our energy future. Before I go on to our policy, I would like to take a moment to address the other policies that have been put forward. Senator David Percock and the Greens Party, along with lobby groups like the Australian Institute, continue to call for an industry-destroying 25% tax on gas exports.

The tax would apply to the total value of all gas exports and destroy the economics of the entire industry. That is their goal. They have drawn false equivalency with countries like Norway, who share the full risks and rewards with their industry.

A model that has succeeded because government and industry partner together, supported by generous tax incentives. These activists simply want to destroy our gas industry and push their Green Agenda scam. It’s nothing more than economic vandalism.

They don’t live in reality. They live in a ridiculous net-zero fantasy world, where fertilisers, plastics, medicines and rubber can be made with the intermittent power from solar panels. Where the 1,500 degree furnaces for smelting can be run on wind turbines.

They want gas stopped. One Nation wants more gas extracted, bigger returns and real energy security. One Nation has previously considered an East Coast gas reservation policy.

However, through consultation with industry and stakeholders, it became clear that it fell short of our policy objectives. The government’s 20 per cent reservation policy will damage onshore development of oil and gas projects. Many of these projects are Australian producers currently supplying the domestic market.

It forces inefficient use of our precious resources under the oversupply model. We will not destroy the industry with forced oversupply. Our policy will instead be flexible to export surplus gas when domestic demand is satisfied, building sovereign wealth rather than undermining domestic supply projects.

Typical of this government, they have thrust these changes onto existing projects with little to no consultation, damaging their ongoing feasibility. This policy is a blunt tool that will result in less competition and less efficient industry. One Nation’s policy will drive more exploration, more development and more production, without pushing out smaller Australian producers.

One Nation is proposing a genuine partnership with the gas industry from exploration through to production and decommissioning. We will provide a 30 per cent rebate on genuine oil and gas exploration in Commonwealth waters. In exchange, the Commonwealth may take up to 30 per cent equity in issued production licences.

The Commonwealth would be responsible for its costs as an equity owner and in turn be entitled to a proportionate share of the production. These costs will include participation in decommissioning, ensuring responsible end of life management is planned from the outset to protect the environment and taxpayers. These ownership rights would be 100 per cent owned by a new Commonwealth special investment vehicle, the Australian National Wealth Investment Corporation or called ANWIC.

ANWIC will direct its share of oil and gas to Australia’s greatest benefit, selling to critical domestic industries like fertiliser production, energy and fuel refining or exporting when the domestic market is well supplied to pay down debt and build sovereign wealth. This flexibility will maximise value for Australians while encouraging industry participation. One Nation would ensure the ANWIC board consists of only industry experts who have had success in the oil and gas industry, not government appointed bureaucrats.

Any profits made on Australia’s equity ownership will be put into a sovereign wealth fund to reinvest and grow, not to be rorted by future governments. Importantly, ANWIC would only act as a non-operating equity partner. We recognise that the expertise rests in our world-class industry and we are there to benefit from their knowledge.

ANWIC would also be empowered to invest in current producing projects. And before the Greens get excited, this won’t be some socialist takeover. It must pay its way into any existing project under commercial arms length terms, not under compulsion or coercion.

This will be a direct financial investment, not a takeover. The equity model gives flexibility to support domestic manufacturing or capture high export prices. It also provides the predictability foreign investors need.

Japan and South Korea are looking elsewhere because of policy instability in Australia. We must look after our trading partners. South Korea takes our LNG and supplies us with essential liquid petroleum products.

Stable partnership policy will keep these vital relationships strong instead of driving capital away. Under One Nation’s policy, the government will have skin in the game as a true partner to industry, maximising returns to the Australian people. This bold new strategy will be supported by One Nation’s long-standing policies of cutting red, green, black and blue tape and dumping net zero targets.

When I consulted gas producers on this policy, they were shocked to be asked their views. One Nation has done more consultation with industry than this government has ever done. The gas industry has been fighting an uphill battle against net zero-obsessed governments.

To all the representatives here, you will not be spared by trying to satisfy the net zero zealots. If you accept any form of net zero or emissions reduction policy, you are signing your industry’s death warrant. They will not stop until oil and gas in Australia is gone.

One Nation will dump all net zero policies. We will abolish the safeguard mechanism that fines gas companies for doing their job. It is actively destroying investment.

It sets rigid emission baselines and imposes heavy penalties, often millions per facility for breaches, even if our gas supports energy, security or vital industry. Companies divert enormous sums to compliance and offsets instead of production and jobs. Constant rule changes create uncertainty, leading to project delays and cancellations and telling investors Australia is not open for business.

At the same time, insane environmental approval processes driven by activist litigation and aligned with UN net zero ideology are compounding the damage. Capital is fleeing to the places that are rolling out of the red carpet, taking jobs and money away from Australians. Red, green, black and blue tape must be cut.

Approvals will be decided within six months with certainty. Fixatious legal claims will not stop vital projects. One Nation is taking the industry in a fundamentally different direction, clearing the way for Australian industry and thinking in generations, not election cycles.

We want more gas unlocked and government as a genuine partner, not an adversary to the industry. Lastly, the petroleum resource rent tax has been a failure in the gas industry. PWRT for offshore gas is not consistent or fit for purpose.

It was designed for oil projects and its structure does not suit gas economics. This has led to unstable tax revenues and eroded community trust. One Nation would replace the PWRT with a simple Commonwealth royalty on wellhead value.

This will give the Australian people a consistent tax take, help preserve the industry’s social licence and provide industry with predictable costs based on production. This change will only apply to prospective projects, grandfathering current PWRT arrangements under which billions were invested. Our policy aims for returns through participation, not ever increasing taxation.

This policy is a massive shift in how Australia gets returns from its resources. Australians will have real ownership of their resource assets for the first time and they will get first use. One Nation will be a partner of industry on behalf of the people of Australia to ensure we have fuel security, cheaper power and pay down our debts while providing the predictability our trading partners need to continue their mutual beneficial relationship with Australia.

Labor and the Liberals have abandoned their founding visions.

Today’s modern Labor Party has traded its commitment to the working class and the family for radical gender ideology, social engineering and control over children, undermining parental rights and effectively claiming ownership of our children.

And the Liberal Party has abandoned the middle class to serve wealthy corporate “puppet-masters” and big-money interests.

There is a stark divide between corporate success and the struggle of everyday Australians.

Data shows corporate profits have soared while the share of GDP going to wages has plummeted.

Real wages have stagnated since 1980, while the costs of education, healthcare, and housing have increased by 300% to 400%.

The “net zero” transition is causing skyrocketing power bills and economic suicide.

One Nation is the only party capable of restoring Australia’s prosperity.

Our plan includes: ▶️ Slashing government spending by at least $90 billion a year. ▶️ Putting $30 billion back into the pockets of Australians. ▶️ Investing $20 billion annually in wealth-growing projects.

One Nation calls for a return to patriotism, family values and economic fairness for the often “forgotten” middle and working class Aussies.

Transcript

Tonight I deliver One Nation’s eulogy for the status quo that had dominated Australian politics since 1949 and that passed away during the break. 1949 was the year Labor prime minister Ben Chifley delivered the famous ‘Light on the hill’ speech and Robert Menzies was elected as the first Liberal Party prime minister. Both were men of vision, both had the courage of their convictions and both were driven by a deep love for our beautiful country. This may cause offence amongst the 2026 rabble pretending to still be Labor, yet I must point out the ‘light on the hill’ metaphor Ben Chifley used as a regular churchgoer is almost a direct quote from the Gospel of Matthew 5:13-16. This is the famous ‘salt and light’ passage from Jesus’s ‘Sermon on the mount’, where he said inter alia: ‘You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Men do not light a candle and put it under a bushel but on a candlestick, and it gives light to all that are in the house.’ And it’s true that Chifley’s speech was rooted in the trauma of the Great Depression, with this line: If the movement can make someone more comfortable, give to some father or mother a greater feeling of security for their children, a feeling that if a depression comes there will be work, that the government is striving its hardest to do its best, then the Labor movement will be completely justified.  

How times have changed. The Labor Party now refuses to even say ‘mother’ or ‘father’, let alone build them into their policies. Indeed, Labor ministers refuse to define what a woman is. Today’s Labor Party uses gender ideology to subvert the concept of man and woman. It refuses to back families as the fundamental building block of society. It undermines family. To those on the government benches, ‘uterus owners’ and ‘prostate owners’ now stand as references to women and men, with ‘birthing parents’ and ‘ejaculators’ serving as references to mothers and fathers.  

The Labor Party has used transgenderism to establish the principle that the state owns your child, and refusing the state’s instruction to transition your child will result in the termination of parental rights. Parents should understand that children are no longer, as Ben Chifley said, theirs; rather, they are the state’s. Last week Jacinta Allan, the Premier of Victoria, confirmed this new Labor principle in the extraordinary defence of child castration, which she still insists on calling ‘gender-affirming care’.  

Mass immigration eliminated job security for most unionists and forced unions to become more and more militant in response to the cost of economic growth. We stopped building wealth. Instead, the fight is over a greater share of the same pie, an inevitably futile task. It’s a game the wealthy have won and the working class have lost, because the Labor Party falsely pretends that it’s in the worker’s corner when it’s not. Corporate profits as a share of gross domestic product have risen from 17 per cent in 1975 to 65 per cent in 2020. The share of gross domestic product for wages and salaries has fallen from 25 per cent in 1975 to 17 per cent today. Corporate profits keep going up. The income share of the middle class, who are still paying everyone’s social security, just keeps going down.  

It’s impossible to look at this data and see a pattern which apportions blame only to the Liberal Party’s periods in office. Both parties are to blame and equally so. The status quo has done over Australian workers, and the polling for One Nation clearly shows workers, tradies and small business are sick of it. Ben Chifley spoke of comfort as a core Labor Party value, and I ask Australia’s working class: where’s your comfort? You’re not only being attacked as colonisers and being degendered and disrespected in Labor’s social policy; your financial position has gone backwards.  

The cronyism and corruption inherent in the net zero transition—the lie—designed as it is to subvert energy generation to the weather, has run riot and rampant through the economy. Business insolvencies are at a record high. Householders are terrified of opening their power bills, and bills are set to rise at five times the inflation rate this financial year, as the cynical energy subsidies the Albanese Labor Government uses to bribe voters and cover up the problem are removed to reduce Labor’s growing budget deficit. Inflation is out of control because of that deficit. And yet you’re responsible for the deficit and the inflation which has resulted from your bribes, dishonesty and pathetic financial mismanagement. It’s taken 75 years for the inspirational vision reflected in the ‘Light on the hill’—a vision of family, comfort and, yes, happiness—to degenerate into an imbroglio of self-interest, moral degeneracy, cronyism, cynicism and, in places, outright corruption. The status quo died because it failed Australia’s working class. It’s no accident that, in the latest polls, people earning over $100,000 a year still support Labor ahead of anyone else. Labor’s new culture of social engineering and division on ethnic grounds has support from those whose incomes insulate them from the damage these policies are doing. Indeed, this moral virtue signalling has replaced the light on the hill. Sit tibi terra levis: may the earth be light to you.  

The Liberal Party is as culpable in this attack on the middle class. In Menzies’s speech—which, to give it its correct title, was the ‘Forgotten people’ speech—he spoke of ‘salary earners, shopkeepers, skilled artisans, professional men and women, farmers and so on’. He said: These are, in the political and economic sense, the middle class. They are for the most part unorganized and unselfconscious. They are envied by those whose social benefits are largely obtained by taxing them. They are not rich enough to have individual power. They are taken for granted by each political party in turn. Menzies’s success was to put the middle class at the fore, recognising that a strong middle class would power the economy and provide a tax base for those who were not able to provide for themselves. His words in 1944 took him into government in 1949, and he went on to become Australia’s longest-serving prime minister for 18 years.  

That was then. The year is not 1949; it’s now 2026, and the modern Liberals no longer owe their allegiance to the middle class. Instead, they owe their allegiance to the wealthy interests who pay the bills and set the agenda. Those rivers of gold have enabled the Liberals to outspend the Labor Party during every election cycle since 2007. The Liberal Party puppetmasters are prepared to surrender the country to the Labor Party rather than see opposition leader Peter Dutton—someone who was asking for a modicum of independence and was eliminated. Those same forces are now defending their latest marionette, an opposition leader who’s so weak that one has to ask: just how much are these people paying?  

One Nation has no puppetmasters. We offer government decision-making based on facts and data, applying principles of fairness and patriotism. I will return to One Nation’s plan for the post-status quo Australia in a moment. Menzies was again correct when he said: The communist has always hated what he calls the “bourgeoisie”, because he sees clearly the existence of one has kept British countries from revolution, while the substantial absence of one in feudal France at the end of the eighteenth century and in Tsarist Russia at the end of the last war made revolution easy and indeed inevitable. What he did not realise is that the modern Liberal Party and the modern Labor Party are acting in unison to destroy the middle class, albeit for different reasons.  

The Liberals want more money for their corporate owners, who do not understand the meaning of a fair share for all. Labor wants to bring about a revolution in society to mirror their Prime Minister’s communist ideology, which is destroying the pillars of Australian society: family and the middle class. Not surprisingly, then, the middle class is shrinking, even as the overall share of wages and salaries in the economy is shrinking. Australia’s median wage has gone backwards by eight per cent under this Labor government, although this is not just on them. Since 1980, the median Australian wage in real terms, adjusted for inflation, has not increased. Nothing. Zero. In that same time, education expenses have gone up 300 per cent, health care up 300 per cent and housing up 400 per cent. If it feels like you’re working harder and going backwards, it’s because you are. The Liberal-Labor status quo has screwed Australia rotten.  

One Nation support has grown rapidly in the last eight months, which is proof that courage is contagious. For 30 years, One Nation has been confined to a cage built to contain our threat to the status quo, a cage that was plastered with a huge sign falsely declaring the contents racist. And, for 30 years, the narrative was successfully maintained because a host of dishonest, self-interested politicians, media and talking heads all benefited financially from maintaining the status quo.  

One Nation will return $30 billion a year into the pockets of everyday Australians. We will shrink the government to fit the Constitution, reducing government spending by $90 billion a year and putting the budget into surplus in our first year. We will invest $20 billion a year in infrastructure, which the private sector will legally match, to build projects that grow wealth for everyday Australians, not foreign corporate profits. We’ve showcased these. These fully costed plans were taken to the electorate last May. We have the details. We know how we will do this, and we know that it can be done. The Australian people have clearly decided it’s time to ignore the insults and instead vote with their heads and with their hearts. Australians want our country back. One Nation is the only party that can achieve that and, indeed, the only party that wants to achieve that. 

I raised the issue of the new “baby” Land Cruiser FJ – a vehicle Australians would love. It’s compact, attractive, and fits our lifestyle. Yet, we are hearing that it won’t be coming to Australia because it can’t meet the new emissions regulations.

The government promised “more choice” and instead, we are seeing the death of the affordable petrol and diesel vehicles people actually want. If they’ve already killed the baby Land Cruiser, surely the HiLux is next on the chopping block.

I also questioned the department regarding BYD and the way these “credits” are being handed out. It’s a disgrace!

The department confirmed that a company like BYD gets credits just for putting a vehicle on the Register of Approved Vehicles, not for actually selling it to a customer. They can park these cars in a warehouse, collect thousands of dollars in credits per vehicle (over $7,000 for a Sealion 7) and then sell those credits to other carmakers who produce “normal” cars.

I asked directly if the department is concerned that this policy is funnelling money into corporations controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. They admitted this hasn’t been raised with the Minister.

The department claims they might look at changing the scheme to a “point-of-sale” trigger in a 2026 review, however for now, the system is wide open for exploitation.

This is what happens when you build a system based on global targets instead of the actual needs of the Australian people. It robs citizens of affordable, reliable transport while enriching foreign entities.

My position on this remains clear: the government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) is strangling the choices available to everyday Australians.

— Senate Estimates | December 2025

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again. I’d like to take up the new ‘baby’ Land Cruiser.

CHAIR: I hear it’s not coming to Australia.

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. It’s a very attractive vehicle. It’s the size of a Suzuki Jimny. It would be very popular. Toyota knows it would be wildly popular, but it says, according to an article:

…the ‘Baby’ Land Cruiser FJ won’t make it to Australia in its current guise because its engine—shared with the HiLux—can’t meet upcoming emissions regulations, which may also see it dumped from the ute range.

When the government introduced the standard, you said it would give Australians more choice. Yet we have an example already of it meaning less choice for Australians. You’ve already killed the baby Land Cruiser. You’re going to kill the HiLux next with these standards. When are you going to admit the new vehicle efficiency standard is taking choices away from Australians who want to drive a normal, affordable petrol or diesel vehicle?

Mr Kathage: Can I just check, Senator. It may be that you’re referring to the noxious emissions standards Euro 6, rather than the new vehicle efficiency standard.

Senator ROBERTS: The NVES.

Mr Kathage: I’m not aware of those reports. I do understand that there’s been a reclassification of Toyota vehicles to meet the heavy-vehicle noxious emissions standard rather than the light-vehicle noxious emissions standard.

Senator ROBERTS: No. That’s just what’s been reported.

Senator O’SULLIVAN: If it helps, Senator Roberts, this is a new vehicle that Toyota have released, and my understanding is it will only be released in Japan. It’s a vehicle that would be highly sought after in Australia, but Toyota have said that, due to the NVES, it doesn’t fit their overall fleet requirements to be able to import them into Australia.

Mr Betts: The NVES doesn’t work on an individual vehicle level. It works across—

Senator O’SULLIVAN: As I’ve said, it’s across their fleet.

Mr Betts: Yes. So let’s look at what’s changed in the Australian market since the NVES hit the statute book. The number of brands on sale in Australia was 56 at the end of 2024; it’s now 65. It was 390 models; it’s 420 models now. The price increase of vehicles is below the rate of inflation; in other words, car prices generally have fallen in real terms. So there’s no evidence that there is a systemic diminution in customer choice or an increase in prices—as we forecast on the basis of experience in other jurisdictions.

Senator ROBERTS: Well, here’s one that’s not coming. On the new vehicle efficiency standard, you’d be aware of reporting by the Financial Review—you may have touched on some of this earlier on—from 2 November that BYD has imported far more vehicles than it has sold in Australia. Has that been raised today?

CHAIR: We have touched on that today.

Senator ROBERTS: Is it accurate that BYD receives those credits for electric vehicles under the scheme just for importing them? Do they get them just for importing a vehicle, rather than selling it?

Mr Kathage: I can answer that, Senator, if you like. Vehicles are counted in the scheme when they’re added to the Register of Approved Vehicles. That occurs during a calendar year. The interim emissions value, which is when units and other effects might occur, is actually issued on 1 February the year after. So vehicle suppliers put something on the Register of Approved Vehicles, there’s a period of time and then, at the start of the next year, effectively, the interim emissions value is issued, and credits are issued shortly after that.

Senator ROBERTS: So it’s for bringing it in and putting it on the register as being here, not for selling it?

Mr Kathage: That’s correct, yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for your succinctness. So, even if BYD don’t go on to sell those vehicles, they still get credits and then they can sell them on to another carmaker who makes normal petrol and diesel cars? They can sell the credits?

Mr Kathage: BYD can import vehicles and put them on the RAV, and then, once the IEV is issued the next year, they can then deal with those units in whatever way they want. The previous evidence we’d supplied is that it does seem the case that BYD has orders that it needs to fulfil. They’ve indicated publicly that there’s been a delay in them being able to fulfil those orders, and their warehousing strategy is a matter for them.

Senator ROBERTS: The warehousing strategy is a what?

Ms Stagg: A matter for them.

Senator ROBERTS: Reporting the money going from the government to them is a matter for us. Reporting indicated that BYD would earn $7,050 in credits for one of its Sealion 7 vehicles, for example. Can you confirm how many credits in total have been issued to BYD under the new vehicle efficiency standard?

Ms Stagg: No units have been issued. As Mr Kathage explained, that will occur on 1 February and will take into account the entire fleet from the OEM for the period 1 July to 31 December 2025.

Senator ROBERTS: I have a few short questions on structure. Are you aware of the ownership structure of BYD?

Mr Kathage: Not personally.

Senator ROBERTS: Has the department raised any issues with the minister about their policy leading to the enrichment of Communist China controlled corporations? That’s what you’re doing by giving them these credits. They’re connected to the Chinese Communist Party.

Ms Purvis-Smith: No, we’ve not raised that.

Senator ROBERTS: Has the department done any work on changing to a point-of-sale trigger for the scheme, rather than an import trigger?

Mr Kathage: That’s something that we’re looking at. As the minister indicated in her second reading speech on the bill, that is a matter that the government will consider as part of the 2026 review. We’ve done some preliminary looking at the benefits and costs of doing so. We sort of touched on this a little earlier, but there are lots of questions that we need to resolve in relation to whether that would be a good idea based on implementation challenges.

Senator ROBERTS: So there’s a lot of complexity when we introduce anything new that is not based upon people’s needs but rather on arbitrary or international targets or something like that. That’s what seems to be the issue here.

Mr Betts: That’s a statement. Mr Kathage indicated the legislation will be subject to review in 2026.

For over 15 years, I have warned that the climate scam is a direct assault on the Australian way of life.

And it’s not just our hip pockets being hit — it’s our humanity.

Labor and Chris Bowen are selling you a “renewable revolution,” yet they aren’t telling you who’s paying the real price.

While Australian families struggle with soaring power bills, children in the Congo are forced into medieval conditions, digging for the minerals that fuel our “green” future.

Women are working in toxic, open-cut mines controlled by the Chinese Communist Party – all so we can pretend we’re “saving the planet.”

Our environment is being destroyed, our wildlife killed off, our economy smashed – and everyday Australians are getting poorer.

It’s not a revolution. It’s a scam!

Note: The data for 2026 confirms that our energy security has been sold off to foreign interests, with the vast majority of these large-scale wind and solar projects owned by overseas entities.

We need to stop this madness and put Australian families and human decency above the “renewable at all costs” cult. There is nothing virtuous about “renewable” energy.

The latest globalist circus: UN COP30 in Belem, Brazil was a monumental failure and a masterclass in elite hypocrisy. While 55,000 “carpetbaggers” and technocrats gathered to lecture us on our carbon footprint, they were busy carving a highway through the heart of the Amazon rainforest just to improve access to their venue. 30,000 trees gone, destroying 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide sequestration, all while sipping champagne on luxury cruise ships floating in a harbor filled with raw sewage.

The hypocrisy is staggering. They parked 250 private jets at local airports and then had the gall to discuss taxing your airline flights.

The UN KNOWS the 1.5° target is a fantasy. The truth is coming out: most countries know that Net Zero will bring economic ruin and that carbon dioxide is essential for human prosperity.

Australia is already at “net zero”. Our forests absorb more CO2 than we produce. To chase “green” energy, the government is blowing up mountaintops for wind turbines and cutting through national parks for transmission lines.  And Ministers like Chris Bowen are being rewarded with UN roles for facilitating the transfer of Australian wealth into the pockets of billionaire crony capitalists and foreign interests.

This isn’t just about the weather; it’s about control. The “Globalist Uniparty” (Labor, Liberal, Greens, and Teals) is ushering in a future where you are herded into 38-storey “human filing cabinets” in 15-minute cities.

They want to track your spending and deny transactions for meat, travel, or air conditioning once you hit your “limit.” The push to eliminate cash is the final step in building this virtual prison. And under the guise of fighting “misinformation,” they are moving to criminalise dissent and “defossilise knowledge.”

When I warned about this nearly a decade ago, people laughed – yet nobody is laughing now. Everyday Australians are waking up to the fact that One Nation was right. We are the only party with the guts to stand up to this madness.

Our plan is simple: 1️ Withdraw from the United Nations and the World Health Organisation; 2️ Exit the UN Paris Agreement immediately; and 3️ Stop Net Zero to protect Australian living standards and sovereignty.

The UN is out of control, and this Labor government is their willing accomplice.

Put Australia first.

— Senate Speech | 25 November 2025

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: This month, 55,000 carpetbaggers, technocrats and enablers gathered in the shadow of the Amazon rainforest to breathe life into the greatest climate change scam for one more year. The United Nations conference of the parties, COP, COP30, in Belem, Brazil, has ended in failure. In this speech, I’m not being critical of the good people of Brazil, for whom One Nation has tremendous respect; I am being critical of elitist politicians, bureaucrats, parasites and thieves sucking on energy subsidies who are blind to their own hypocrisy, incompetence and dishonesty—hypocrisy such as building a highway through the Amazon rainforest to improve access to the conference venue, which turned into another ‘look the other way’ moment for the world press, still using climate change as a boogieman to scare people into continuing to read their rubbish. This highway bisects an environmental protection area and cuts through wetlands and dense secondary Amazon rainforest. The highway allows easy access for illegal logging, disrupts water and food supply for native inhabitants and actually increases the flooding risk in Belem. In other words, it’s just another day at the office for the hypocritical, incompetent, dishonest climate change zealots. Actual environmental groups and satellite monitoring from Imazon have tracked secondary deforestation already sprouting along the new corridor, in the classic fishbone pattern that often follows Amazon road building. An accurate estimate for the number of trees felled is 30,000—gone! This eliminated 10,000 tonnes of national carbon dioxide sequestration necessary for oxygen production. 

This is something you’ve heard before from One Nation. Australia is already at net zero. Every year our extensive forests, natural and planted, absorb more carbon dioxide than Australia produces. Any talk of UN carbon dioxide reduction, as inhuman and nonsensical as that is, must acknowledge the essential role of planting and preserving trees and forests. Instead, in Australia we’re seeing large-scale deforestation, blowing the tops off entire mountains to locate massive wind turbines, and building access roads and easements for electricity transmission lines through the bush and national parks. 

The environmental damage of UN COP30 doesn’t stop at rainforests. Only four per cent of Belem’s sewage is treated, and the rest gets dumped into waterways and, from there, into the sea. Attendees at the conference were billeted on luxury cruise ships in the harbour in Belem. Attendees were able to look over the side and see raw sewage from the conference floating past. How fitting is that? What a perfect metaphor for the excretable, failed theory of climate change. 

I haven’t finished on the hypocrisy. Tarmac space limited the number of private planes arriving to 250, requiring the conversion of 14 local airports into parking lots for crony capitalists to park their jets whilst lecturing us on our carbon dioxide footprint. Domestic and international flights added another 50,000 seats, so I wonder how many people bothered to use the new highway through the Amazon. Perhaps the highway was for the workers, whilst the elites flew. I thought flying was a crime against mother earth, but the rules don’t apply to the people who make them. I was especially amused to see those same people who flew to Belem support an agenda item for a tax on airline flights to raise US$6 billion towards fighting themselves. 

The final communique was a complete failure, a collection of weasel words and platitudes. UN COP30 turned into a cop-out. UN climate chief Simon Stiell hailed the communique as proof that climate cooperation is ‘alive’, and that their goal of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius was still ‘within reach’—a furtive plea if ever I heard one! Former environment minister Tanya Plibersek, from the Labor government, emphasised new hope for the 1.5-degree Celsius alignment. New hope? No, Minister, there is no chance and no hope the world will ever meet the Paris targets. There’s no scientific reason why they should. A stronger initial communique was rejected, with only 30 of the 194 delegates in support. The final cop-out communique only recommitted to the Paris accord and a voluntary global plan for eventual phase-out of hydrocarbon fuels, coal, oil and natural gas. Spot the weasel words: ‘voluntary’ and ‘eventual’. UN COP30 said the quiet part out loud. This is not going to happen. 

The truth is that most countries have realised climate change science is wrong; net zero measures are ruinous; and hydrocarbon fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, are essential for maintaining living standards and for lifting underdeveloped nations out of poverty. This is about humanity. This is probably why Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, has accepted a thankyou job with the United Nations in acknowledgement of his service to the UN’s crooked cause. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Cox): Senator Roberts, just a reminder to refer to those from the other place by their correct titles. 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister Chris Bowen. That means using the pretence of global warming to facilitate the transfer of income, wealth and opportunity from everyday Australians into the pockets of the world’s richest crony capitalists and their communist Chinese allies. His appointment has been criticised, but, from my perspective, the less this bloke is in Australia the less damage and hurt he can inflict on Australians. 

Events like the conference of parties and Davos are not just talkfests, as one attendee told me. They have two purposes. One is to see what the billionaires that pull the world’s collective strings can get away with this year. The second is so that these predatory billionaires can steer world events to increase their own wealth and power. As an example, BlackRock Inc spent $10 million attending UN COP30 to advocate for a worldwide carbon dioxide tax and trading system so their executives can buy carbon dioxide credits and then live the same lives of plenty they live now. This isn’t speculation. They actually said that. The videos are online. 

On the other hand, working Australians are increasingly being herded into smaller and smaller homes, smaller lives and smaller families, centred around train stations, which will ultimately become 15-minute cities. It will be a world of people working from their tiny apartments, stacked up in human filing cabinets. The latest approvals are now for 38 storeys—hundreds of families in an area that used to house four families and their backyards. 

Do you remember backyards? There’s no place for personal space in this new globalist world of mass migration. You’ll be kept in this virtual prison by your personal carbon dioxide allowance, which will prevent car ownership, prevent travel, prevent meat—and no pets which eat meat. New clothes will be limited to three purchases a year, and there will be no air conditioning. There’s no provision for air conditioning in the platinum energy standard being advanced by the Greens and the teals. And that code includes sealing a home so tightly to reduce energy loss that air flow will be restricted and condensation will lead to an ongoing problem with mould. Try that one in Queensland!  

If you think, ‘I will not comply,’ you will have no choice. Your bank is already preparing to help you limit your daily carbon dioxide output and, in 2030, will start denying transactions above your allowance. It’s a system that works only if cash is eliminated, which the Treasurer, the Labor treasurer, is trying to do now with new anticash regulations. 

When I first talked about these things nine years ago, nearly a decade, the internet laughed. Well, the internet is laughing much less now, as this agenda starts to affect them personally. Everyday more and more Australians are realising One Nation was right about everything. This will be your future under the Liberal-Labor-Greens-teal globalist uniparty. In fact, this future is why the teals were invented: to take over from the Greens, who are moving into the lunatic fringe of politics, and to take over from the Liberals, who are starting to baulk at committing this crime against humanity. 

Recent Liberal Party leadership changes at state level installed leaders who have signed onto the UN nightmare agenda. These leadership changes were designed to ensure that, if the federal party does change direction, those pro-Australia policies will be blocked at state level. There’s really no hope for the Liberal Party while it’s under Michael Photios’s control. 

And don’t think you’ll be able to attend a protest rally or speak out in dissent. The Labor Party have colluded with the Greens and teal-like senators to hold a sham, show trial into freedom of speech, which they call ‘misinformation’. Not surprisingly, in this bias sham trial, freedom of speech is losing, as intended. The outcome will be misinformation laws that allow the government to suppress criticism and evidence of their failures, in the same way that the Keir Starmer’s regime has in the UK and Mark Carney in Canada. This trial, combined with schooling to year 12, university education for all high-school graduates and the under-16 social media and search ban, will ensure your children will not know what truth is. They will only know what the government wants them to know. 

In June, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, Elisa Morgera, called for states to ‘defossilise knowledge’ through the criminalisation of what she defines as misinformation as well as criminalising media that amplify it. Defossilising knowledge—knowledge!—that is terrifying. Morgera wants criminal sanctions for those deemed to have obstructed climate action. The United Nation is out of control and so is this Labor government, with its Greens allies. 

One Nation has all the answers to stop this. We will withdraw from the UN, the UN World Health Organization and the UN Paris Agreement and stop net zero.