Key stakeholders have universally supported establishing a COVID Royal Commission while many slam the Prime Minister’s COVID review panel as a toothless tiger.
Doctors, unions, human rights lawyers, vaccine injured and Royal Commission experts were among the witnesses to give evidence at a Senate inquiry tasked with proposing terms of reference for a future COVID Royal Commission as pressure mounts on the Albanese Government.
In a rarity for parliamentary inquiries, every single witness was united in their support for an expansive, fully empowered Royal Commission into the Federal and State Governments’ response to COVID.
Senator Malcolm Roberts who established the Senate inquiry said the evidence heard on Thursday meant it was only a matter of time before the Prime Minister’s hand was forced.
“The largest government economic and health response in the wake of COVID deserves a fully empowered Royal Commission.
“Nearly four years on from the start of COVID-19 Australians still don’t have answers about why Government took some of the most draconian measures in Australian history.
“Anthony Albanese’s COVID review panel is made up of insiders who vocally supported the harshest lockdowns in the world. It’s a toothless tiger made to whitewash everything the Federal government did while turning a blind eye to anything State governments did.
“The Albanese Government took less than three months to call its first Royal Commission. With the Government’s second anniversary approaching without a COVID Royal Commission Australians are asking the Prime Minister, what have you got to hide?
“Only a Royal Commission can answer why government had vaccine mandates for a vaccine that didn’t stop transmission, secret health advice that was never published, established plans for pandemic response that were ignored and the longest lockdowns in the world called over a virus as severe as some flus.
“We cannot afford to make the same mistakes again. Anthony Albanese must call this Royal Commission so we can get to the bottom of it all.
ENDS
A recording of the public hearing is available below:
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Screen-Shot-2024-02-01-at-8.59.55-pm.png?fit=827%2C416&ssl=1416827Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-02-01 21:50:432024-02-01 21:53:21PRESS RELEASE: UNIVERSAL SUPPORT FOR COVID ROYAL COMMISSION AT FIRST INQUIRY HEARING
Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is giving the Australian people a say about a Royal Commission into the management of the COVID-19 pandemic by Australian governments.
While the Prime Minister may be prepared to wait and kick this can down the road, One Nation is not.
I’ve been working with Pauline Hanson on developing draft terms of reference for the Royal Commission. We want to make sure these terms of reference capture all of the information which Australians need to see – the deliberations of National Cabinet, the advice from health bureaucrats which state and territory governments used to justify lockdowns and vaccine mandates, and the real data on COVID-19 deaths.
We’ve posted these draft terms of reference on the One Nation website and we’re now asking for input from the Australian people. It’s absolutely essential this Royal Commission enables individual Australians to tell their stories of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thousands of Australians lost their jobs due to lockdowns and mandates. Our children’s education was severely interrupted. Businesses across Australia suffered significant losses or closed altogether. Australian governments spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars in pandemic relief. Experimental vaccines were rushed through approvals and imposed on millions of Australians. This has been one of the most disruptive events in our history.
This afternoon I had the opportunity to ask questions in the Senate Committee on “Lessons to be learned in relation to the Australian bushfire.”
I chose to ask my questions to Greg Mullins who is a Climate Councillor with the (Tim Flannery’s) Climate Council. Mr Mullins wasn’t too keen on answering my questions and took the name calling route rather than providing the evidence I asked for.
“I’m a retired person, I don’t have time to deal with denialists who can’t accept settled science.” Mr Mullins is the person who the Greens rely on as their climate expert during the recent bushfires.
Transcript
[Senator Roberts]
Thank you chair, and thank you Mr. Mullins for attending today, and also thank you very much for your service over many years, in fact nearly half a century.
I’m very pleased that the opening sentence, in fact the opening line of your presentation, you used the word empirical, and when I first used that in the senate in 2016 and in the media a lot of journalists were running off getting their dictionaries and senators were giggling and carrying on. I am pleased to see that you have used that word empirical.
There is another part to that though that needs to be proven when it comes to cause and effect. It’s not just the word empirical, not just the empirical data, but also presenting that in a causal framework that establishes cause and effect, and you’re with me on that?
[Greg Mullins]
Uh, yes.
[Senator Roberts]
I’ve had to use data because I’ve had to manage people’s lives and make sure people stayed alive, so I always relied on empirical data and understood cause and effect especially investigating safety incidents to establish cause.
Now in your opening paragraph and in your recommendation one you state irrefutable empirical scientific data concerning warming climate proven to be caused by burning of coal, oil, and gas is resulting in worsening and more frequent extreme weather events that spawned the 2019 bush fires. Could you please tell me the specific source of your empirical scientific evidence within a logical structure proving cause and effect that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate?
I’d like to know the specific title of the publication, I’d like to know the specific page numbers in which the data is presented, and in which the causal relationship is established.
Now I know you’ve used a lot of references from SBS, The Guardian, the Greens Party, The Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, the ABC, but I would like to know the specific location of the specific empirical data that scientifically proves cause and effect that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate. Could you do that for me please either on notice or now?
[Greg Mullins]
Uh, senator or chair, do I have to answer this question? Senator, I’ve read your website, I’ve read, or tried to read, a lot of your stuff that you’ve published, and so I’ve read very widely for and against. I don’t think there would be any purpose served me trying to convince you of what thousands of scientists agreed on and the settled science, and it is settled science, and I’m at a loss to know how to deal with your assertion, I won’t call it a question.
[Chair]
Thanks Mr. Mullins, Senator Roberts.
[Senator Roberts]
Can you provide me with one title of empirical scientific evidence in a causal framework establishing cause and affect?. Not one?
[Greg Mullins]
Look I could provide many for you, but I’m a retired person.
[Senator Roberts]
One would do, just one.
[Greg Mullins]
I frankly don’t have the time to deal with denialists who can’t accept settled science.
[Chair]
I think what I propose, thanks Senator Roberts.
[Greg Mullins]
That was not an admission, it was exasperation senator.
[Senator Roberts]
Now we have talked also about-
[Chair]
You’ve got one last question Senator Roberts if that’s okay, we are out of time.
[Senator Roberts]
Yeah one more question, that’d be fine. Are you aware, Mr. Mullins, that in my cross-examination of the CSIRO that the CSIRO’s acting head of climate change admitted to me that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented and that the CSIRO admitted to me in an earlier presentation in Sydney that they have never said that carbon dioxide from human activity poses a danger and they never will say it.
Are you aware that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented?
[Greg Mullins]
Senator, now that’s a very broad question. Are you talking about hundreds of millions of years when the dinosaurs were roaming the earth or when humans, and look I say again, I have read your material and the assertions made therein under the guise of being in scientific language, and I find it very concerning and quite muddled, and I’d be very surprised if the CSIRO said what you’ve just stated just as you said that I didn’t have any reference, it wasn’t true.
One Nation Senator Roberts expressed sheer disbelief and disappointment with the Keelty report into the Murray Darling Basin’s water allocations to farmers who need water to grow food.
Senator Roberts said, “As the nation reels from COVID-19 and faces food shortages this report is woefully inadequate and a tragic waste of taxpayers’ money. “
“An investigation should demonstrate rigour and analysis and instead Mr Keelty’s report is full of inadequacies.”
The report fails to include in its datasets this year’s substantial rainfall event and does not acknowledge rainfall within the MDB has increased over the past 100 years. Instead the Keelty analysis deceitfully uses ‘declining inflows’ as a way of arguing why farmers should be denied a fair allocation of water.
When 4000 disenchanted farmers descended on Canberra to protest the unfair allocation of water between the environment and farmers, they were promised that their zero allocations would be the subject of this review.
“It is deeply disappointing, particularly now when our agricultural productive capacity is under-utilised, that this issue was not rigorously examined by Mr Keelty. Astonishingly the report fails to even mention those zero allocations,” added Senator Roberts.
As predicted by many farmers, the former Water Minister David Littleproud used the promise of an investigation into the MDB to quieten the crowd of protestors and conveniently shift blame to the States and irrigators.
Irrigators are suspicious of MDBA figures that show declining inflows when the Murray River has been running so high that environmental damage has resulted along the upper Murray and Barmah/Millewa forest from excessive water.
Disturbingly the report claims that environmental water is not being wasted, ignoring the unnecessary flooding of forests, excess water flushed out to sea in South Australia and keeping the lower lakes filled above their natural levels with Murray River water.
“The report may as well have been written by the MDBA itself, as it addresses none of the concerns from farmers, some of which have gone without a water allocation for 3 years.”
COVID-19 has highlighted the critical importance of Australia restoring our productive capacity across many strategic industries, including our agricultural sector.
“The Keelty report’s lack of due diligence in this investigation is akin to the last nail in the coffin of one of Australia’s most substantial food bowls. No water, no food,” Senator Roberts added.
Unsurprisingly, the report found that a lack of trust and leadership worsened the problems. One Nation calls for a Royal Commission into misconduct in the implementation of the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
“Trust cannot be restored until rorting has been exposed and fixed. Australia needs management of the MDB Plan that reflects a genuine triple benefit – for irrigators, communities and the environment,” Senator Roberts stated.
