We first brought this issue to light several years ago, urging stronger safeguards to protect children from explicit, graphic and pornographic books, comics and other harmful publications.
Recognising the validity of our concerns, the department acknowledged the problem and is working to reform the classification system for these materials.
During this session with the Classification Board, I raised the proposed update to Australia’s classification scheme to transition from MA 15+ to MA 16+, noting that aligning this age limit with an under-16 social media ban makes sense for consistency.
I questioned whether the intent of the MA 16+ proposal is to legally block children under 16 from accessing this material in retail stores, libraries, or online – using the book ‘Welcome to Sex’ as an example.
Officials clarified that the current public consultation (which closed May 29) is focused on changing the age limit from 15 to 16 for games, films and publications and does not guarantee that children under 16 will be completely barred from accessing them. Ms Vandenbroek noted that MA-rated content can typically still be accessed with parental consent and library/retail restrictions largely fall under state and territory jurisdiction.
Mr Mackay added that any final scheme changes will require a decision by the federal government alongside unanimous agreement from all states and territories.
I expressed frustration over the slow pace of the process and asked the department when legislation would be introduced. Mr Cole confirmed that no official commitment has been made yet, as they are still awaiting the conclusion of the consultation and subsequent government and state/territory decisions.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: I have very simple questions and they’re very short too. In the last Senate estimates session, ACMA suggested I should ask these questions here. Your review into modernising Australia’s classification scheme has moved on slowly to this draft proposal. I note the need for something in printed publications rated between G and R is still accepted. I thank the department and ACMA for that. The new classification applying to all content, including publications, is MA 16+. This harmonises with the under-16 social media ban and other measures of maturity, so I agree with making the ages consistent. My question is: can you confirm that the MA 16+ classification is intended to ensure that no child under 16 can access this material in a retail environment, in a library or through an online purchase?
Mr Betts: Chair, for your benefit, this is not a corporate question. But I understand that Senator Roberts has many commitments during the course of the day, so we will answer this question, noting that it is probably part of outcome 5.
CHAIR: It may not be to do with Senator Roberts’ commitments. From what he said in the preamble, it may be that ACMA suggested it be asked somewhere else. But if we are able to answer it now, that would be wonderful. Senator Green: Yes. It’s under the next outcome, but we can answer it.
Mr Mackay: It is a question for the department, but it does come under outcome 5.
Senator ROBERTS: We were both right.
Senator Green: Column A, column B.
Senator ROBERTS: Or both wrong.
Mr Mackay: Would you mind repeating the last part of the question?
Senator ROBERTS: Can you please confirm that the MA 16+ classification is intended to ensure that no child under 16 can access this material in a retail environment, in a library or through an online purchase?
Mr Cole: No, we’re consulting on that at the moment. We are open for consultation on the update to the guidelines and they will close this Friday 29 May. There have been recommendations by our external provider we had come in to do some work on that. They’ve made recommendations with regard to MA 16+, as you talked about before, but they’re open for classification. Sorry for consultation at the moment to work through whether we should introduce those. So it’s a consultation period.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Let me clarify. The intent behind the proposal as it stands now, subject to consultation, is that no child under 16 can access this material in a retail environment, library or online purchase if it’s accepted?
Mr Cole: Can you repeat the question?
Senator ROBERTS: What you’re saying is that you cannot confirm it at the moment, because it’s still a proposal and you’re seeking consultation?
Mr Cole: That is with regard to the introduction of 16.
Senator ROBERTS: Is the driver behind the introduction to make it so that no child under 16 can access the material in a retail environment, library or online purchase?
Mr Cole: That’s not what’s being proposed at the moment.
Senator ROBERTS: What is being proposed?
Mr Cole: Some recommendations have been proposed that are outlined in the report that you talked about there. There has been discussion around the MA 15+ changing to MA 16+. That would include not just publications but films, games—what’s actually there now. That’s what’s being proposed through the consultation process. But what would be taken from there would be a decision of government.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. Is the intent that a child under 16 cannot access this material in a retail environment?
Mr Cole: Not at this stage. Again, it’s a public consultation process.
Senator ROBERTS: No, I understand that. Given that it’s subject to public consultation, I accept that. That’s beneficial. Is the aim of this at the moment that, if it goes through as is, no child under 16 can access this material in a retail environment, a library or online purchase?
Mr Cole: No, that’s not what’s being proposed.
Senator ROBERTS: What is the intent?
Mr Cole: The intent with regard to changing from MA 15+ to MA 16+ is changing the age limits of the way people can access that material, whether it be games, publications or films.
Senator ROBERTS: Under this proposal, if it survives public scrutiny—consultation—could a child legally get their hands on a copy of books like Welcome to Sex?
Mr Cole: I can’t answer questions for the way that libraries, state governments et cetera provide publications. That’s not a federal government decision, so I’m unable to answer that.
Ms Vandenbroek: At the moment, for example, for films that are rated MA 15+, people under the age of 15—correct me if I’m wrong—are able to view those films with their parents’ consent. So it’s not that they can’t legally see it, but they do need their parents’ agreement. That would be what would happen for films.
Senator ROBERTS: What about libraries? How do we protect kids?
Ms Vandenbroek: Very few publications are actually classified. It’s only if they’re called in for classification. Because of the volume, it’s not feasible to classify all written publications. If a book were to be classified currently as MA 15+, it would then be a matter for the library or the bookstore to deal with how that is displayed and how access is restricted.
Senator ROBERTS: So children could still get access to this material?
Mr Mackay: As my colleague indicated, that really is a question for state and territory governments. Following the consultation that is underway at present, any changes to the scheme would require unanimous state and territory agreement, given the issues we’ve been discussing for any changes to the guidelines or to the national code, and that’s a step that would follow from the consultation process that’s on foot at present.
Senator ROBERTS: You proposed a PG 13 classification? Is that correct?
Mr Cole: A PG 13 classification has been consulted on. That’s correct.
Senator ROBERTS: So you’ve gone back out for further consultation, as we’ve discussed?
Mr Cole: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: When will this legislation come before parliament? The process is taking too long. We’re not saying don’t have consultation—we believe in that—but it’s taken such a long time. When will it come before parliament?
Mr Cole: There hasn’t been a commitment by government to introduce legislation. At the moment, we’re going through the consultation process for the update to the guidelines. That concludes at the end of this week. Then the findings will be considered and provided to government, and how that’s taken forward will be a decision of government. As Mr Mackay mentioned, any changes have to be unanimously agreed by states and territories, so any changes that are proposed would still then need to go through that process agreed by states and territories before anything could progress.
I questioned representatives from Screen Australia regarding their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agenda. DEI requirements are not mandated by legislation or the Screen Australia Act, instead they are management-driven KPIs.
I challenged their Gender Matters and inclusion targets, which aims for at least 50% female and non-binary representation in key creative roles, arguing that exceeding 50% disadvantages more meritorious men and ignores true merit-based selection.
Taxpayers are contributing $86 million in the 2026-27 budget, yet Screen Australia’s recoupment of equity investments remains low (ranging from 12% to 32%), indicating poor commercial performance.
I pointed out that overall audience numbers have dropped significantly since 2021-22, questioning whether their focus on ideological targets is failing to deliver what audiences actually want to watch while giving taxpayers less value for money.
One Nation will dismantle government-backed DEI initiatives and equity-focused programs that divide rather than unite, ensuring all citizens are treated equally under the law based strictly on merit.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again. My questions go to the DEI agenda of Screen Australia. A producer that used a polite Facebook post to raise the gender imbalance in favour of women in your approved productions and in your management was blocked. These questions are apparently not allowed. Happily, you can’t block me, so we’ll ask some questions. From your corporate plan 2023-27: Screen Australia’s funding guidelines include an Inclusive Storytelling Statement that highlights our commitment to diversity equity and inclusion. The agency has developed a series of programs to provide skills development opportunities for diverse practitioners traditionally under-represented in the Australian screen industry … Screen Australia also has a long-standing commitment to gender equity through its Gender Matters program and KPI. Can you show me where in your enabling legislation this DEI requirement was mandated, or is this a decision taken by the management, the board, the government, the minister, KPIs?
Ms Brunsdon: The screen sector in Australia and globally has traditionally been very white and male. The population in Australia is slightly more than 50 per cent women. That’s not the case in terms of the representation in the screen sector. There are generally equal numbers of men and women in film schools who finish those studies, but they’re then not represented and their stories don’t get told, and stories from a female perspective are not always told. Stories from culturally diverse parts of the country are not always told. Our research tells us that Australian audiences value authentic representation of Australian stories, and that goes right across the community. A lot of the research we’ve done on seeing ourselves, which goes into the representation of parts of the community on screen and behind the screen, tells us that there are parts of the community that are very severely underrepresented, including people with disability, where one in five people in the community identify as having a disability but we don’t see that on screen. We do have programs, like most of the state screen agencies, to develop new stories from different parts of the community. They’re stories that travel. They’re stories that get audiences in Australia and internationally, and that’s one of the reasons that we do that. People like to see themselves, their experiences and their lives reflected in the stories they watch on screen, whether that’s on TV or whether it’s in cinema. The Gender Matters taskforce has been disbanded. The corporate plan that you mentioned has been updated, and we released a new corporate plan last year in April. Our purpose is about supporting a vibrant and viable screen industry that reflects the diversity of stories and the depth of stories from across Australia. So we’re just working with and trying to reflect the community of Australia in the stories that get supported and that get shown.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I didn’t ask you to justify your following of DEI. I just wanted to know if your enabling legislation requires DEI—if it was mandated—or if it’s a decision taken by the management, the board, the minister or the government? Who set your KPIs on this, you or the government?
Ms Brunsdon: We set the KPIs.
Senator ROBERTS: So who set the DEI requirement? Was it mandated?
Ms Brunsdon: There isn’t a DEI requirement mandated, but the functions of Screen Australia under the Screen Australia Act are to support and promote the development of a highly creative, innovative and commercially sustainable Australian screen production industry and support the development, production, promotion and distribution of Australian programs and the provision of access to Australian programs to support the development of screen culture in Australia and undertake any other function conferred on it by the law of the Commonwealth. There are a number of ways that we do that. We’re also required to place an emphasis on documentaries and programs of interest or relevance to children and programs with a high level of artistic and cultural merit, promote the open market as the primary means of support for projects with commercial potential, promote the development of commercially focused screen production businesses and promote the effective, efficient and ethical use of public resources. There’s no DEI component in there. We interpret reflecting these stories to ensure that there is a diversity of stories on screen.
Senator ROBERTS: Could you give me, on notice, your evidence from your research that says DEI improves your capability in all those areas?
Ms Brunsdon: I’ll take that on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you—and any peer reviewed scientific studies would be appreciated as well. It seems that you’re setting them In looking at your KPIs, the first KPI for 2016-19, at least 50 per cent of production funded projects are to have women in more than 50 per cent of key creative roles. This was achieved at 56 per cent. Is your KPI really ‘at least’ 50 per cent? Surely anything above 50 per cent means less meritorious women are being favoured over more meritorious men. Surely the merit ratio is 50 to 50—or, in your universe, are women better than men?
Ms Brunsdon: Are women better than men? It’s a KPI that we measure over three years, so it’s not that every project has to have women in key creative roles. It’s over the breadth of the projects that we support that we are aiming for that target. And it’s a target; it’s not a rule. It’s something that moves depending on the projects that come in and depending on the creatives already attached to those projects. It’s a target that’s harder to achieve in feature films because they often come with a writer-director from their origination. A lot of TV series that come to us don’t necessarily have all their directors attached, so there’s room for things to move at those times. So it really depends on everything. The population isn’t quite fifty-fifty.
Senator ROBERTS: Slightly more females.
Ms Brunsdon: Slightly more females. That target is about the representation of women relevant to the population and to the community.
Senator ROBERTS: Have you done any work on why that used to be lower? There are some amazing female producers, directors, actresses—or actors, whatever you want to call them these days. In the past, surely for commercial interest, people would have wanted to jump on to make sure that women were involved. They provide a more varied and diverse approach. So why were they underrepresented?
Ms Brunsdon: For a variety of reasons—in the same way that they’re underrepresented in many parts of the economy and many parts of the sector and, indeed, leadership positions more broadly. A lot of women take time out to have children or have other caring responsibilities. It can be more difficult to get back into the sector if you’ve taken time out for those caring responsibilities. That’s certainly one thing. There are a number of research papers that detail this. People find it more difficult to get jobs when they have children because of the hours that this industry takes when you’ve got a project in production. So there are a number of barriers there for people to do that. We’ve recently done some research looking at different methodologies for production—that might be a nine-day fortnight or shorter working hours or eight-hour days and that kind of thing—to try and encourage better working hours for everybody. It’s not just for women or people with caring responsibilities but actually for the whole workforce.
Senator ROBERTS: I think most people would agree from their own experience—it’s not just me—that women are generally better carers. Most families make the decision that their children will be cared for by one of the partners if they can afford it, and that’s increasingly unlikely, sadly, these days, but generally that’s the woman because women are better carers.
Ms Brunsdon: I couldn’t comment.
Senator ROBERTS: I wasn’t fishing. The second KPI from 2019 to 2023 was ‘more than or equal to 50 per cent of key creative roles across development and production held by women’. That was achieved at 55 per cent. Again, tough luck men, because this is all about the women, right?
Ms Brunsdon: Well, the KPI is about female representation, yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Yes. Having achieved the earlier targets, rather than holding them there and looking for projects with merit, you increased the targets. For 2023 to 2026, the KPI requires the female mandate to be expanded to include non-binary, gender-diverse people for a target of more than 50 per cent of key roles of writer, producer or director across funded projects for a three-year average. Is women at 50 per cent a hard floor? Is bringing in transgenders, men living as women, taking jobs off women, or is ‘transgender’ a new protected class to add on top of the 50 per cent reserved for women?
Ms Brunsdon: No, it’s not. The 50 per cent is for women and/or non-binary or gender-diverse people. So it’s an inclusive target of 50 per cent.
Senator ROBERTS: So it should be 50 per cent or more?
Ms Brunsdon: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: You must be treating it as additional because the latest data shows that female and trans et cetera producers are now at 62 per cent, writers are up to 55 per cent and directors are still down at 49 per cent—almost 50. Apparently, that’s not close to being equal. Overall, it is 56 per cent across all KPIs. Are you going to stop now and start approving projects on merit again?
Ms Brunsdon: We do approve projects on merit. That’s absolutely the very first thing. The target is about tracking the projects in terms of who the key creatives are and making sure that we’ve got that information as we’re going through the year. The results of the target also change every year depending on the projects that come to us. Because we don’t commission projects, we can only respond to the applications that we receive.
Senator ROBERTS: ‘Merit’, do you say? Well, it’s not really, is it? Because there’s a line item in your account for ‘recoupment of equity investment’, REI, which is taxpayers getting a return on our money. If your investment decisions were being made on merit, your commercial returns would show that. I note your returns over the last six years on recoupment of equity investment have ranged from 12 to 32 per cent. Some variation may occur as costs are in one year and returns are in another, so we understand that. Your numbers may be more accurate. Why did the projects you fund fail commercially so frequently? Even when you’ve had a hit, the best year was only 32 per cent of your money back.
Ms Brunsdon: It really depends on the projects, and they’re subject, obviously, to global headwinds and the contraction in the global marketplace for screen content. It depends on the box office, if they’re theatrical feature films in Australia, and it depends how well they sell internationally. Over the last couple of years, it’s become much more difficult for projects to sell, certainly into the US, which used to be a much more stable market, certainly for Australian content. It can’t be relied on because of the contraction of some of the big media players there. It’s very much subject to market conditions, and the market has changed significantly and continues to move fluidly, and that’s not something we have any control over. Some projects do incredibly well. The feature film Talk to Me, which was released a couple of years ago, has recouped many times over what its budget was.
Senator ROBERTS: It was a very good one.
Ms Brunsdon: A very good one. We want more like that. And there are things that perhaps are less commercially focused but still play very well with audiences. There’s a real range of projects that we support and a real range of returns, because the return on investment is not just about the commercial financial return; it’s also a cultural return and an influence return, in terms of whether it is something that’s going to influence people to change their behaviour. There are different reasons that we watch the shows that we watch, that we go to see films that we see, and our reactions to them and our behaviour is a result of that.
Senator ROBERTS: I understand systems change behaviour and language changes behaviour. Could you tell me the behaviours you’re seeking on behalf of the Australian taxpayer?
Ms Brunsdon: We’re not seeking—
Senator ROBERTS: You’re basically changing behaviours, which I understand. So what behaviours are you trying to change?
Ms Brunsdon: We’re not trying to change behaviours. It will depend on the show. There may be documentaries that seek to give people a better understanding of a certain issue or group of people, and to have more empathy around things or just understand their community better.
Senator ROBERTS: Is changing behaviour one of the criteria or one of the KPIs for selecting investment grants?
Ms Brunsdon: No, it’s not.
Senator ROBERTS: How do you do that, then? How do you make sure they change behaviour?
Ms Brunsdon: That’s not something that we can do. We don’t distribute the shows, we don’t market shows and we don’t commission shows.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. A common measure of a hit screen production is one that returns 2.5 times its production cost. Two times breaks even, including distribution, and the 0.5 on top of two is profit. By that measure, your last hit movie was the movie Talk to Me in 2022, which cost $4 million and returned a whopping $140 million. A great result, but it was unexpected for a small horror film. Nonetheless, it was a good result. It made your results for 2023-24 look good. The next previous hits we can see in your returns are: Lion way back in 2016; The Sapphires in 2012; and Red Dog in 2011, which must have been a very big hit. That was a long time ago. Is this move to DEI in more recent years creating projects that people don’t want to watch?
Ms Brunsdon: No.
Senator ROBERTS: In 2024-25, your total audience was 101.8 million; let’s say 102 million. That’s up from last year, but it’s down on 2020-21, and on 2021-22, which was 140 million. So you’re way down—that’s almost one quarter down. I acknowledge that the platforms are changing from theatre to streaming, and now to TikTok. Can you provide an accurate figure for your audience each year over the last five years, broken into screen, television, streaming and social media, please.
Ms Brunsdon: I’ll have to take that on notice.
Senator ROBERTS: Your 2026-27 budget is $113 million, with $86 million from the taxpayers. What is your projection for grants and for recoupable investments in 2026-27?
Mr Reid: Our budget for 2026-27 is the total expenditure for 2026-27 on page 526 of the Portfolio Budget Statement.
Senator ROBERTS: How much?
Mr Reid: It is $95.9 million in total expenses, and our recoupment budget for 2026-27 is $3.8 million.
Senator ROBERTS: How much from taxpayers?
Mr Reid: From taxpayers, we receive revenue from government of $86 million.
Senator ROBERTS: So that’s the same.
Mr Reid: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: We’ve got figures of grants of $34 million and recoupment of equity investment of $59 million.
Mr Reid: You’d have to point to where you’re—we do do grants and equity investments. For 2026-27 we’re projecting $34 million in grants and $33.6 million in what we call the write-down in impairment of assets. That’s the equity component that we provide to recipients.
Senator ROBERTS: The first figure, we agree on. What was the second figure?
Mr Reid: It’s $34 million and $33.6 million in investments.
Senator ROBERTS: If your primary objective is to fund Australian content, then the figure in your budgets for grants and REIs, inflation adjusted, would go up each year, but it doesn’t. Wages go up every year, but money going back into the industry is down from a high in 2020-21 of $99 million, which is $118 million in today’s dollars, to $86 million this year. Taxpayers are paying more and getting less out of Screen Australia. Why is that?
Mr Reid: I’m not sure that I agree with the premise of your question, but taxpayers are paying less and we are delivering a lot for the Australian public.
Senator ROBERTS: Can you convince me that taxpayers are not paying more and getting less?
Mr Reid: Your own figures were that, in 2021, we were paying out $90 million and now we’re paying out less. But Australian stories are being produced and watched at a very high rate.
Senator ROBERTS: But the figures don’t reflect that—the profit figures and the returns.
Mr Reid: As my colleague mentioned, Screen Australia does not make all of its decisions based on commercial return.
One Nation fully supports the bill introduced by Senators Babet and Antic – A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Amendment (No Jab No Pay Repeal) Bill 2025 – which seeks to restore the conscientious-objection clause to federal family assistance laws.
This bill enables parents with unvaccinated children to access the childcare subsidy and Family Tax Benefit Part A without facing financial penalties, applicable up to age seven after which the child is deemed to meet the schedule irrespective of vaccination status. Under this amendment, parents would be able to file a written declaration of conscientious objection, alongside a consultation with an immunisation provider regarding risks and benefits, to legally satisfy childhood immunisation requirements.
Australian childhood vaccination rates are at a 12-year low, dropping below the federal government’s 95% target. This drop in vaccination rates is no coincidence and can be attributed to public distrust following government actions and mandates during COVID-19.
Medical coercion violates patient autonomy and the ethical guidelines of the Australian Immunisation Handbook, which mandates voluntary informed consent.
There are disparities in state-level “no jab, no play” childcare bans so vaccination status should have no bearing on child care, relevant subsidies and the ability to claim Family Tax Benefit A. Besides, we let in millions of people into Australia without knowing their vaccination status. India and China have vaccination rates higher that we do, however Pakistan is down to 80% and Yemen is at 50%.
Further, safety testing of childhood vaccines against inert placebos have NEVER been tested, a requirement of the ICH Guideline for Good Clinical Practice E6, which the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) ratified. High levels of adverse events such as autism that parents associate with the vaccines, are brushed off by the authorities, with no examination, and no interest in exploring truth. A One Nation government believe this is a matter in the public interest and will require this safety testing to be funded given the significance of the exercise.
Transcript
Senator Roberts: Thank you to Senators Babet and Antic for this bill, A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Amendment (No Jab No Pay Repeal) Bill 2025, which One Nation wholeheartedly supports. The bill simply provides for the conscientious-objection clause to be restored to the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999, which will allow children who are not fully immunised to access social security.
Specifically, this will allow families whose children may not be vaccinated to access the childcare subsidy and the family tax benefit part A supplement without facing financial penalties. Under this amendment, if a parent files a written declaration of a conscientious objection and an immunisation provider certifies they have discussed the risks and benefits, the child is legally deemed to have met the immunisation requirements. This provision only applies to age seven, after which the child is deemed to meet the schedule irrespective of vaccination status.
This bill is sensible. It’s fair. It restores the fundamental principle that parents make decisions for their children—not governments. Childhood vaccination rates in Australia are currently at a 12-year low, dropping below the federal government’s target of 95 per cent. Vaccination rates at 12 months are 90.5 per cent, down 4.3 per cent over the last five years. At 24 months, the rate is 88.4 per cent, and, at 60 months, the rate is 92.5 per cent. According to the latest data from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, approximately 80,000 children under the age of five are not fully up to date with their standard childhood immunisations.
The timing of this fall is no coincidence. Immunisation was a major casualty of Australia’s criminal response to the COVID scandal. It turns out that, when you force vaccination on people and destroy the careers, businesses and, in some cases, marriages of those who refuse, many people do not react with acquiescence. They react with understandable suspicion, distrust, resentment and anger. They saw the harm people were experiencing from the COVID injections, they look at the harm some childhood vaccines are causing, and they ask, ‘What else have our authorities lied to us about?’
The reduction in support for vaccination takes two forms. Firstly, parents are increasingly choosing not to give some or all of the schedule to their child. Secondly, parents are delaying the shots until their baby is older. For instance, in 2025, two in five children received their first measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, dose later than recommended. That’s 40 per cent.
When looking at vaccination rates across Australia, national averages can be highly misleading. The national average sits at around 91 per cent, although this does not mean every area is vaccinated to that level. There are growing regional differences. The drop in vaccination rates is not happening evenly across the country.
The National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance map data from the Australian Immunisation Register onto a standard unit called an SA3, statistical area level 3. This is important when comparing vaccination rates in one area against those in another. Five years ago, more than half of all SA3, statistical area level 3, areas had reached or exceeded the 95 per cent target. Today, the number of SA3 areas meeting that target has plummeted to just 18 per cent—less than one in five. This shows that the fall in confidence in vaccination is happening right across the country.
It can be argued that these SA3 areas with vaccination rates below 95 per cent no longer have herd immunity. Herd immunity has come under scrutiny following the failure of the COVID vaccines, the COVID injections, the COVID gene therapy treatments, to effect herd immunity, despite the level of coercion which went into achieving very high vaccination rates So far, this healthy scientific re-examination has shown measles, mumps, polio and rubella vaccines can achieve herd immunity because their outer shell is stable over time.
Many countries, including the United States, have found the level of preservatives in the MMR vaccine is too high for safety and require those shots to be given separately and spaced out. One Nation supports that position. Viruses like COVID and influenza mutate rapidly and, as society proved with COVID, do not allow for herd immunity. This was conventional science before our COVID response tore up the rule book and threw out the science. Surprisingly, the areas of lowest vaccination are not in rural and regional areas. They are in growth corridors and inner-city areas. That’s interesting. Conservatives are frequently blamed for lower vaccination rates, yet where are the lowest rates? They’re in inner city left-leaning electorates. Vaccination rates in the bush, though, can be delayed, owing to distance and scheduling.
Growth corridors are showing lower vaccination rates, and this is where the babies are and where mothers live with concern about government agencies’ actions dishonestly compromising their precious babies’ health. The bill does not address the issue of unvaccinated children attending child care. State governments control that policy. New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia all have laws preventing unvaccinated children attending child care. Queensland allows the centre to make the decision. The ACT, Tasmania and the Northern Territory have no regulations similar to no-jab no-play. Vaccination status is not relevant to child care. Canberra always makes rules for others that it does not impose on itself. Recall Commonwealth agencies inhuman, antihuman, immoral, dishonest COVID restrictions and lies contrary to the science. This is interesting. If vaccination status is critical to keeping children safe, we would see New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia having lower disease rates than the ACT, Northern Territory and Tasmania, who allow vaccinated and unvaccinated children to mix. Not surprisingly—to me anyway—there is no difference in disease rates between the states on average over time. Don’t you just love competitive federalism? I sure do!
If you look at the raw infection numbers that the Australian Centre for Disease Control, the CDC, publishes, New South Wales regularly records the highest numbers of whooping cough and measles cases in the country. This may be because Australia does not screen new arrivals for vaccination status. For clarity, new arrivals are those visa types which are counted towards net overseas migration. Although the same no-jab no-play rule covers children of the net overseas migration and Australian children, when new arrivals apply for permanent visas, they come under the migration medical examination, which does check their vaccination status and requires makeups where required.
What’s the take-home here? We go to all this trouble to achieve childhood vaccination, then we let in millions of new arrivals and don’t even ask their vaccination status. For the record, India and China have vaccination rates higher than ours. Pakistan is down at 80 per cent, and Somalia and Yemen are at 50 per cent. I’ve asked about this in Senate estimates hearings and always get nothing answers—crap—and that’s the problem. Unless we can talk honestly about these issues, confidence in health authorities will continue to plummet. Their hubris will be fatal to public health. We also know is that we have a 35-year high in whooping cough, pertussis, notifications and public measles alerts. Something is going wrong, and we have every right to ask about it.
One Nation has concerns around no-jab no-play laws. In medical ethics the relationship between coercion and vaccination is a complex topic, with two competing ethical duties—respect for individual autonomy and the duty to protect public health. In Australian clinical practice, coercion is against ethical guidelines. Under the Australian Immunisation Handbook for a patient to give legally valid medical consent that consent quote ‘must be given voluntarily in the absence of undue pressure, coercion or manipulation’. A doctor cannot ethically use physical force, direct threats or deception to compel a patient to take a vaccine. Doing so violates the foundational bioethical principle of autonomy, and that’s the right of an individual to make decisions about their own body. It is this autonomy Senator Antic’s bill seeks to strengthen, with the re-inclusion of a conscientious objection. As such, the bill fits perfectly within the existing legal and ethical vaccination framework. Here I must make the point that during COVID this fundamental protection against coercion was torn up and ripped to shreds with apparent glee from our health authorities, who revelled in operating in an environment without ethics. The very people who should have displayed ethics instead chose hysteria with an added layer of financial gain. The fundamental rule here is that, if you ignore the rule on informed consent, the risk—in this case, COVID—has to be proportionate to the measures taken. The vaccine has to be proven safe and effective. The measures taken must be the least necessary to be the least infringement on the code, and, finally, the measures have to be necessary. The COVID immunisation agenda met none of these four tests—not one. The COVID shots were not tested. The skimpy so-called testing was done on a different version of the vaccine to the one actually sold in Australia. The term ‘safe and effective’ was two lies. They were not safe; they were not effective. And we know the health agencies and departments knew that at the time. I’ll say it again: we know the health agencies and departments knew at the time that they were not safe and effective. They were not necessary. Vaccinating for influenza has never worked and did not work in the case of COVID, and, lastly, they were not the least infringement on the code. Ivermectin and similar accessible, affordable, safe drugs were proven safe and effective yet were banned by our health authorities.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, Ahpra, should have acted to defend the rights of patients and stood in defence of informed consent, which is supposedly an Ahpra objective. Instead, they chose to police medical practitioners to ensure none dared to follow the Australian Immunisation Handbook guidelines. Ahpra tried heavily and determinedly to ensure health practitioners did not comply with the Hippocratic oath. These dishonest travesties Ahpra continue today.
Secondly, childhood vaccines have never been tested for safety against an inert placebo—never—which is what is required by the ICH Guideline for Good Clinical Practice E6, which Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration, the TGA, has ratified. Australian vaccines have not been tested against this standard. Instead, the TGA, in Senate estimates hearings, relies on the lack of reported serious adverse events to assume vaccines are safe. Despite there being high levels of adverse events such as autism that parents associate with the vaccines, the authorities, with no examination, brush off that the cause is vaccines. It’s this, more than anything else, that’s causing a loss of confidence in vaccination. A One Nation government will require this safety testing to be done and, given the significance of the exercise, fund the trials, in the public interest.
Finally, under America’s health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC in America, announced an unprecedented revision of the routine childhood immunisation guidelines, shrinking approved vaccines from 17 to 11. Australia has 14. This move is currently blocked in American courts after the pharmaceutical industry fought back. I hope the measure is approved, as it will provide a very immediate answer to the question of a potential link between childhood vaccines and adverse events that agencies with connections to big pharma currently and blindly do not accept as being vaccine related.
Greg Beattie’s excellent book, Fooling Ourselves, provides a proper statistical evaluation showing that the incidence of childhood diseases and their effects plummeted before the vaccines were released. That means that vaccines were not the cause of the near eradication of the diseases. Rather, it seems that improved hygiene, improved sanitation and improved nutrition were the causes of falling disease incidence. It means that there will be no harm in not forcing childhood vaccines—no harm.
In summary, parents have every right to be wary of the harm these products may be doing to their children. They have every right to exercise their religious or conscientious objections to forced vaccination. They should not be treated differently for not having vaccinated their children in whole or in part. And childcare centres should be free to make the decision to accept or not accept vaccinated or unvaccinated children. One Nation will proudly support this bill
https://img.youtube.com/vi/9X3We0aqX-4/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-09-30 16:48:022026-09-30 16:48:06Bringing Choice Back to Family Assistance
Senate Estimates provides an opportunity for us to raise concerns from our constituents. One such issue I brought up was the abduction of Australian children to Japan.
I asked the panel if they were aware of the situation and the Secretary, a former ambassador to Japan, responded by explaining that Australia has been actively working with Japan to update its family law system. He mentioned that joint custody would be introduced in Japan by 2026.
Senator Penny Wong confirmed this and elaborated on the steps Australia has taken to address this tragic situation where families are being separated.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair. Thank you for appearing today. I have two issues. The first one is that it has been drawn to my attention a growing problem related to the breakdown of the family law system in Australia. Some children of a broken marriage are being taken by a parent or family member out of the country to avoid the implementation of court orders related to custody of a child and to prevent a parent from accessing the child or children of the relationship. I have deep concern about the growing practice of taking children to Japan, where local law does not assist or provide for the return of the child to the country of usual habitation. There are now many Australian children, perhaps in the hundreds, living in Japan prevented from returning to their family, friends and home in Australia. Is the Australian government aware of this practice?
Ms Adams: Senator, we are aware of the issues in Japan with child custody and child abduction; that is the term we use.
Senator ROBERTS: That is an accurate description. Is the Australian government aware that the Japanese government has promoted this practice actively through seminars as an option for parents in Australia?
Ms Adams: I’m not aware of that, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: What can be done by the Australian government, in liaising with the Japanese government, to have these children returned to Australia?
Ms Adams: We have been very active on this issue in Japan for many years now. I know this personally, having been ambassador to Japan and having been involved in these issues, including direct conversations with ministers responsible for justice and parliamentarians and other advocates for child custody reform. The issue has been raised through different governments, I would say, at ministerial and, indeed, leader level. We have been encouraged by some movement in Japan towards modernising, I would say, custody arrangements. It’s a major reform work that we have been advocating for. I will finish by saying that we welcome the passage of the legislative reforms that will allow for joint custody from mid-2026.
Senator ROBERTS: So, your efforts are ongoing, I take it?
Ms Adams: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: There are some signs of hope in Japan?
Senator Wong: If I may, I will add to the secretary’s answer. I will see if anyone can add specifically on the progress of the domestic reforms. First, this is a very distressing situation for many parents. I have engaged with some. Their heartbreak is completely understandable and clear and patent. We continue to provide consular support for them.
As foreign minister, I did believe it was important to advocate on their behalf. I can tell you that I raised this issue personally with former foreign minister Hayashi as well as the next former foreign minister Kamikawa, both predecessors and foreign ministers while I have been in this job. We have encouraged them to find a solution to allow children to maintain meaningful relationships with both their parents. We were pleased to see some progress in terms of the domestic legislation. In this case, others may have more information about that. We understand that there’s more to be done. I can say to you as the foreign minister and from the ambassador and system perspective that we continue to put our view about the importance of this and the experience of families in this situation.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Ms Adams.
Senator Wong: I can take you through some of the things. There has been a submission to the Ministry of Justice in Japan.
Senator ROBERTS: I was going to ask about that. From the Japanese I’ve dealt with, I know that they are very polite and very conservative people. I didn’t want to put you on the spot because it might jeopardise the negotiations.
Senator Wong: That’s very kind. I think we can talk about the public things we have done. I think Mr Maclachlan is about to do that.
Mr Maclachlan: As the minister and the secretary have outlined, Senator, Japan has introduced legislative reforms. It has implemented them. They will come into effect in mid-2026. They will effectively allow for the joint custody of children. We are continuing to work with Japan to encourage, if you like, the implementation of these laws in a way that would actually allow for children to have relationships with both parents. Of course, the actual outcome in individual cases will actually be determined by the circumstances of individual parents and children. They will need to continue their work and to seek Japanese legal advice in relation to that.
This legislation builds on a long period of advocacy. The minister has outlined her work. I would add to that. The Attorney-General, Mr Dreyfus, exchanged letters on the issue in October last year with former justice minister Koizumi and former justice minister Saito in March 2023. The embassy also supported a visit to Japan in April this year by the honourable Justice Victoria Bennett of the Federal Circuit and Family Court. It was to share some of our experiences with the implementation of family law and how we deal with some of these matters to, if you like, help Japan’s system see the benefits of reform. Our ambassador in Japan and, I dare say, the secretary, when she was ambassador in Japan, were also engaged with officials in the Japanese system to advocate for these reforms.
In February this year, as part of a public consultation on the proposed family law reform in Japan, we made a joint submission with AGD to that effect. We continue to do that. We remain available, of course, with the Japanese to help if they have questions about the practical implementation of their law.
Of course, there’s also the consular side of this. At the end of the day, we’re talking about parents and children and Australians. The embassy is doing what it can to assist Australians who are affected by the present circumstance. We provide parents with regular updates on developments. The most recent time we did that was on 30 September. We’re also supporting a visit by the Japanese Ministry of Justice to Australia this year to, again, get first-hand experience, if you like, of how our family law system operates here.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/qpFqgLQ1hco/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-11-21 12:17:002025-07-02 15:53:44Australia Advocates for Joint Custody Reform in Japan
At the same time Prime Minister Albanese is floating a proposal to ban children under 16 on social media, the Victorian ALP is promoting an LGBTIQA+ agenda to children 5 years old and up. This includes using libraries to carry “educational” books like ‘Welcome to Sex’, which are in fact sex instruction manuals.
Additionally, the guidelines promote drag queen story time and involve asking 5-year-olds about their preferred pronouns. Even more concerning, library staff are instructed to actively inquire about the children’s pronouns and even if known, offer them the opportunity to discuss their gender preference. At 5 years of age!
When the Prime Minister talks of keeping children safe, he clearly isn’t talking about keeping them safe from groomers who want to introduce adult concepts to young children in ways that can only lead to confusion.
In this speech, I review the literature on transgender surgery and highlight how this agenda is harming children with no medical benefits.
Transcript
I note that staff in libraries across Victoria have been given a new LGBTQIA+ instruction called the ‘rainbow libraries toolkit’, which requires libraries to ask the gender and pronouns of children as young as five. Five! The Allan Labor government launched the toolkit. It advises library staff that adding books on gender diversity to their collections and promoting the drag queen story events to children will make them more LGBTQIA+ friendly. The toolkit advises library staff not to assume the gender pronouns of primary school age children. The explanation for this is:
It is also important to recognise that, especially for young people, gender identity and sexuality can shift or evolve over time.
Children in particular may want to experiment with different gender expressions through dressing up, and we can support them by avoiding mapping our expectations of gender onto them.
Library staff are told that even if they are “familiar” with a child who visits their library, they should “leave room for them to express a change in their identity”, including by prompting them if they still go by the same pronouns.
Checking in casually about their pronouns (“Do you still prefer he/him pronouns?”‘; “Do you still go by Sam, or is there something else you’d like me to use?”) …
What the hell is going on? When these books—written for children, supposedly—are opened, it’s easy to see that they’re actually instruction manuals for sex. Who puts gender propaganda into libraries for primary school age children to access? Who runs drag queen shows for children? Who talks to children as young as five about their gender identity? Groomers do. The Australian Labor Party does. Who knew that the ‘P’ in ‘ALP’ stands for ‘perverts’?
The inevitable outcome of this childhood grooming will be an increase in gender dysphoria in children, leading to increased pharmaceutical interventions. Here is what we know about the drugs used in gender dysphoria, commonly called puberty blockers. According to the TGA product assessment for leuprolide, the purpose of the approval is for the treatment of cancer. The drug reduces the production of hormones on which cancer feeds—fair enough, for adults. This reduction in hormones causes ‘atrophy of the reproductive organs’. What are the side effects? DAEN case 816594, 26 July 2024, female age nine years: side effects included pain and fat necrosis. Fat necrosis, according to the Cleveland Clinic in America, is the death of fat tissue in the breast or other organs. The damaged fat may be replaced with a cyst or scar tissue—nice! DAEN shows that there have been 42 reports of adverse events from leuprolide among children aged 10 or less. Less than half of the reports include age, so the real figure will be much higher.
This drug cost taxpayers $271 for a low-dose and $1,370 for a high-dose prescription. At a time when taxpayers are struggling with the cost of living, why is the Albanese Labor government choosing to spend taxpayers’ money on this? The propaganda around this very expensive drug is that these changes are not permanent, and the transgender lobby repeat this as a mantra. It’s a lie. The condition that is reversible is precocious puberty, where a child goes into puberty at a very young age. Puberty blockers do indeed prevent that child from going into puberty, until they are removed from the drug, usually at around 11 years of age. The extension of that safety data to any child is the great lie of childhood transgender experimentation. There is no proof that these drugs are safe for a child who is not suffering the raised hormone levels associated with precocious puberty.
This is not my opinion; Britain’s National Health Service has changed their guidance on children and puberty blockers, preventing their use for the gender dysphoria on the basis that: ‘Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria. The effects of bone density in children whose central precocious puberty is arrested with puberty blockers are considered unknown, as they have not been studied.’ Why the hell not? Why are these things handed out like confetti and like candy when we don’t know their long-term health impacts? That is not responsible. It’s criminal. It’s inhumane.
A groundbreaking documentary from the state-run television channel in Sweden has revealed a shocking case of bone damage in one child, Leo. He’s one of 13 children treated at the Karolinska University Hospital who are known to have suffered catastrophic injuries from puberty blockers. Their ailments include liver damage, mental health problems, skeletal damage and a failure to grow. From that investigation:
Leo is in pain most of the time. His back hurts badly when he stands up or walks. It is a hard life for a teenager, and he has no idea if the agony will ever go away.
And:
He has spinal fractures and a condition called osteopenia, which weakens the bones, making them more liable to break. It is a disease that you often see in people aged 60 or 70 and is almost impossible to reverse.’
The overwhelming evidence is that this atrophy, this damage to the reproductive organs of children, is permanent. We are administering this to children under 10, and it’s sterilising them. It’s this evidence that has seen 25 American states ban the pharmaceutical mutilation of children.
Likewise, the transgender lobby will tell you that a cross-gender-identifying child has a greater risk of suicide without puberty blockers. A comprehensive literature review published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society found said there was no statistical signal that suicides increase or decrease from pharmaceutical gender intervention. So, before the Munchausen-by-proxy brigade and the lining-their-pockets brigade come after me, I suggest you take a long, hard look at yourselves. In Senate estimates hearings I asked the TGA if they had conducted safety testing and approved these drugs for use in children, and I was advised they had. I have a motion in the list for tomorrow calling for the release of that data, which is not on the TGA website.
In good conscience, One Nation cannot support the continued harming of our children for a condition that can be treated successfully with counselling and love. One Nation will continue to defend the family and children from the perversions of the Labor Party and, bizarrely, from Victorian librarians.
Tonight I ask whether this Senate can have confidence in the integrity and competency of investigations of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, ASIC. It was only a few months ago that the Senate Economics References Committee handed down a scandalous inquiry report which documented how ASIC has comprehensively failed the Australian people. Now further information has come to light which shows ASIC has once again failed to protect everyday Australians. This failure is ASIC’s criminal investigation into a precious metal dealership, ABC Bullion, that occurred between July 2022 and August 2023.
Over the course of 13 months, ASIC spent approximately $300,000 to investigate serious allegations regarding ABC Bullion’s storage services, including whether the physical gold and silver bullion of Australian investors was missing. ASIC closed its investigation on 10 August 2023, stating it would take no further action. This is a decision I disagree with on the basis of information I have at hand, and it’s troubling that current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese took the unprecedented step of holding a national press conference with the directors of ABC Bullion and its parent company, Pallion group, and providing them an explicit personal endorsement. This press conference occurred while the ASIC investigation into possible fraud was underway.
Pallion is Australia’s third-largest private company, and I’m sure that carries weight with ASIC and the office of the Prime Minister. This endorsement was despite the Australian Taxation Office’s highly publicised pursuit of Pallion over the past decade. This tax office investigation cost millions of dollars and covered alleged involvement in an elaborate GST fraud scheme and an illegal phoenixing activity. This saw the tax office succeed in a legal bid to appoint liquidators to the phoenix Pallion group while continuing to pursue the current Pallion entity. The Prime Minister endorsed a company that was under two separate government investigations, from ASIC and the ATO, both of which should rightly have been known to the office of the Prime Minister.
Why would the Prime Minister endorse a company under two government investigations? Recently, independent investigators have found more troubling information about the millions ABC are charging mum-and-dad investors to hold bullion in their secure facility in Marrickville. Firstly, ASIC did not physically inspect any ABC Bullion or Pallion group facility for 9½ months, providing ample opportunity for the Prime Minister’s mates to physically alter the evidence.
Secondly, on 31 July 2022, a mere 3½ weeks after the ASIC investigators tipped off ABC Bullion that it was under investigation, ABC Bullion moved an undisclosed quantity of physical bullion from a tiny room in the Sydney CBD to an industrial building located in Marrickville. This building did not then, and does not now, have a valid occupation certificate, meaning that ABC Bullion and its sister company, Pallion Equipment, have been, under New South Wales law, illegally occupying a building for more than two years. In the past month Inner West Council has officially declared this occupation to be, in their words, ‘unlawful’.
Thirdly, this unlawful occupation was never disclosed to ABC Bullion’s insurers, despite it being required under law. Such nondisclosure provides the insurer with a legal right to void any insurance contract, thus exposing investors to significant risk without their knowledge.
In summary, ASIC investigated the Prime Minister’s mates and gave them a clean bill of health, even though easily identifiable illegal activity was occurring under their nose. (Time expired)
I was unable to conclude my speech on the Green’s Motion regarding the age of criminal responsibility, which is why the video was cut short. You can read the rest of the speech below. I hope my speech sheds some light on the complexities surrounding this issue.
I spoke against Greens’ Senator Shoebridge endorsing the Australian Capital Territory’s increase in the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years of age and then in 2025 to the age of 14. It’s perplexing to see the Greens suggesting that a child under the age of 14 is not mature enough to be held accountable for their actions.
Caring for and loving children must encompass instilling in them a senses of responsibility. Failing to hold children accountable for their actions and the consequences does them a disservice.
The Australian Capital Territory is not alone in taking action to increase the age of criminal responsibility. The Northern Territory and Tasmania took similar steps.
For the Greens, age is a problematic concept. In ‘Greens Land’, a child of 13 is deemed incapable of legal responsible for their actions, yet is expected to be mature enough to make significant life decisions regarding gender identity and sexual activity. This disparity underscores a problematic viewpoint which encourages children to engage in activities deemed “mature” by Greens’ standards, yet are shielded from the responsibility that accompanies their actions should they break the law.
Transcript
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak against Senator Shoebridge’s motion endorsing the ACT’s recent increase in the age of criminal responsibility from 10 years of age to 12 and then, in 2025, to 14. Care for children starts with love, and part of love is responsibility. It is not being kind to children to not be responsible. The Australian Capital Territory is not the only jurisdiction taking this action. The Northern Territory recently increased the age of criminal responsibility to 12. Tasmania increased the minimum age for detention to 14. For the Greens, age is a problematic concept. They just don’t seem to understand that care involves responsibility. In a ‘Greens land’, a child of 13 cannot be held legally responsible for their actions. Yet a child that age can choose their gender, change their gender and read instruction manuals in adult sexual practices years before they are legally old enough to engage in that activity. Indeed, in ‘Greens land’, a child of any age can do those things. A 10-year-old can. An eight-year-old can.
It’s perplexing to see the Greens suggesting a child under the age of 14 is not mature enough to be held accountable for their actions. This issue comes down to a simple legal principle: do they know the distinction between right and wrong, and can apply that distinction to their own actions? As long as there is no factor other than age that impacts on their capacity, they are criminally liable. Those factors could include autism, fetal alcohol syndrome or drugs. There’s merit in the idea that a child of that age is better diverted than convicted. I’ll say that again: there is merit in the idea that a child of that age is better diverted than convicted. I agree that diversion programs should be the first option for any child coming to the attention of the police or the courts. I have issue with children being held accountable for the sins of the parents, and so many of the children that come to the attention of law enforcement at this age are there because their parents have failed. There must be a point, though, where the person is responsible for their own actions. A young person can use a bad start as an excuse for the rest of their lives, or they can use a bad start as motivation to succeed. I’ll say that again: a young person can use a bad start as an excuse for the rest of their lives, or they can use a bad start as motivation to succeed. This legislation allows the excuses. One Nation supports helping a child succeed. Karly Warner, the CEO of the Aboriginal Legal Centre (NSW/ACT), made the following comment on the legislation:
“In the extremely rare instances when a child does something seriously wrong, it’s because they’ve been let down and need our help. By failing to raise the age to 14, the Australian Government is failing Aboriginal children, who are over-represented at every stage of the system, from police to court to prison. The ACT imprisons Aboriginal children at 12 times the rate of non-Indigenous children.
Schools have a significant influence on future generations. We are seeing more schools introduce drag queen events into the curriculum without involving parent. There’s a need for communities to come together and talk about what’s happening here. This is not just about drag queen performances, it’s a symptom of a far bigger issue. Parents are understandably concerned about boundaries here and you need to know what your children are exposed to.
Join me at the Caloundra Power Boat Club on Wednesday evening, 1 November 2023 | 5:30 – 7:30 pm
The Classification Board is required to protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation, abuse, and pornographic material. This is outlined in the legislation written in 1995. Restricting publications such as graphic novels, in the best interests of children, is not book burning, it’s common decency.
The motion I have introduced to the senate is about classifying books like ‘Welcome to Sex’ in such a way that prevents young children from reading them.
Why? Because it is not legal to instruct children in how to have sex before they have come of age. Basic morality and community standards are reflective of a civilized society and we would do well not to forget that.
Once lost, a child’s innocence cannot be replaced.
The ‘woke’ agenda’s increasing desire to enlist young children in an adult’s world of sex and depravity is nothing short of grooming.
My motion refers the classification to a committee review to create a new category for sexually explicit material directed to adolescents, to ensure kids don’t get their hands on this material without parental supervision.
Transcript
I move:
That the following matter be referred to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and report by the first sitting day in March 2024:
The adequacy of the current classification system for publications to protect children from age-inappropriate material, including:
(a) the need, if any, for penalties on publishers who fail to meet their obligations under the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 to submit potentially offending material to the Classification Board for review; and
(b) any other related matters.
As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I’m speaking this evening in support of my motion to refer the classification system to a Senate inquiry. I’ve circulated a briefing document to explain this motion, and I hope senators have had time to review the material relating to cartoons for adults, otherwise known as graphic novels, in digital and printed form. The Classification Board administers the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995. Not every publication, though, is checked, of course. This would not be feasible. Instead, a system of voluntary referral is in place for questionable publications. That’s where the problem is—the system of referral or non-referral.
A publication called The Boys has been available in Australia since the first issue in 1996. This is the same The Boys that Netflix turned into a hit streaming show. Children, having seen the sanitised Netflix version and then seeing the book version on the shelf of their local library, will, of course, pick the book up and borrow it, unaware of the depictions of extreme violence, rape, public sex and bestiality found in the publication. Even more troubling, all of these things are portrayed in a positive light. For 25 years, this material has been perfectly legal to sell, display and lend to minors of any age.
A week after the Classification Board appeared before Senate estimates to answer questions from me and Senator Antic, the board reviewed all six volumes of The Boys as a result of a referral from campaigner, family protector and child protector Bernard Gaynor. A citizen fulfilling his responsibility to the community, to the nation, got it referred to the board. Three volumes were restricted and three were allowed to remain on sale unrestricted, meaning available in libraries to children. One of the banned works, episode 5 in volume 1, was titled ‘Herogasm’ and chronicled the sexual exploits of our superheroes. Graphic depictions included orgies and bestiality. This behaviour was presented in a positive light, with smiles, high fives, raised fists and whoops all around.
Dynamite publishing did not refer their publication to the Classification Board as the law requires. I’ll say that again. Dynamite publishing did not refer their publication to the Classification Board as the law requires. The Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 does not prescribe a penalty on a publisher who does not refer a work that may be subject to sanction. That’s an incentive to not submit a work. This is one of the terms of reference of this motion. Penalties may be appropriate for a publisher who failed to submit a work that was subsequently restricted.
One of the volumes that was not banned depicted the male lead character, Homelander, raping the lead female character, Starlight, complete with protestations, using language that should not be suitable for children. The board declined to restrict the volume because the nudity in the rape scene was not overly graphic. What about the rape? All senators and members of parliament are required to take a course on sensitivity to women. The Classification Board clearly needs to attend the same training. The second justification for not restricting the volume is even worse. It was, ‘The two characters both climaxed, suggesting the sex was not rape but consensual.’ The Classification Board is apparently bringing back, ‘But she came’—the old rape defence. Where are the women’s activists? Where are the Greens talking about women now? They’re nowhere to be seen.
Another graphic novel currently on sale and on display in libraries unrestricted by the Classification Board is Nagano, which depicts sexual behaviour featuring girls who are actually labelled in the illustration as being seven years old, just in case there was any doubt about who these comics are really aimed at.
Now we have the book Welcome to Sex. The authors are Yumi Stynes, Melissa Kang and Jenny Latham. It’s published by international publishing house Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing. Much has been said about this publication in recent weeks. For those who have not read it, let me explain a little about this book. The publication is officially aimed at ages 10 and up, with author Yumi Stynes publicly stating that she would have no problem with an eight-year-old reading the book. Certainly some of the information in this book will help adolescents come to terms with their changing bodies and their relationships around that process. If the authors had stopped there, we would have no problem. They didn’t stop there. The second half of this book is nothing short of an instruction manual on how to perform adult sex acts, commencing with advice to young girls to take their own virginity with a hairbrush and then moving onto hand jobs, sex and even anal sex, ending with advice on how to send naked selfies. This is all in a book published for ages 10 and up. How is it legal to advise kids to have sex before they are legally able and to send illegal child pornography and to advise children to ignore the counsel of their own parents? How is this legal? Ten-year-old children cannot have sex and should not be tutored on how to do so.
It may be that this material is being sold because the Classification Board only has the choice between ‘unrestricted’ and R18+, which is restricted to sale in plain wrappers to adults. In effect, the current classification system has no jump between Cat in the Hat and actual porn. All publications become either one or the other. Legislation written in 1995 simply didn’t envisage this trend of graphic novels that are sexually violent and exploitative material that one could describe as child-grooming material.
Children are far more valuable than this. I’m asking the committee to decide if there should be more steps in the classification options so material like this can be allowed for sale to adolescents old enough to actually engage in the sexual practices explained in this publication. After all, the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 does require the board to protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation, abuse and pornographic material. This publication is pornographic. Restricting a publication like this is not book burning, as some have suggested, some who are afraid of a debate. One Nation is not calling for the book to be banned. We are suggesting this book should be classified in a way that prevents young children from reading it. That is not book burning. That is basic decency reflecting community standards that say teaching 10-year-olds how to have anal sex is just plain wrong. A legally binding MA15+ classification would achieve that. I ask for the Senate’s support for my motion.
The Vote
After constituents told me children can access disgusting pornography on store shelves & libraries, I moved a motion to refer the book classification system to a senate inquiry so that Australians can have their say.
Our children deserve our protection.
We finally got the Liberal-Nationals to support an inquiry. Labor, Greens, Pocock and the Teals (LGPT) voted to stop an inquiry. The vote was: YES – 25 and NO – 30.
The LGPT brigade think it’s okay for children to access porn and that Australians shouldn’t be able to voice their concerns.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/JUKBz8V6478/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Sheenagh Langdonhttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSheenagh Langdon2023-08-02 12:32:172023-08-04 14:20:46One Nation Will Always Protect the Innocence of Children
I stand in defence of a child’s right to innocence.
Children must be allowed to grow up without being exposed to sexual grooming.
The legal system and courts in this day and age are supposed to defend children’s rights. Yet today sometimes fall short.
What consenting adults choose to do is their own business, yet not in front of children.
Biblical texts serve to demonstrate humanity’s strong & long history of protecting childhood innocence.
The book of Matthew, in strong terms, warns those who would lead children astray.
The message is clear: Leave our kids alone!
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland and of Australia and as a grandparent, I stand in defence of a child’s right to innocence. Intentionally misleading children hurts and corrupts children, and exposing children to messages that steal innocence hurts and corrupts children.
We live in a time when the World Health Organization has started a campaign to give our children sex education from birth; to show six-year-olds pornographic material and to give nine-year-olds practical sex education. We live in a world where men dressed as women can perform lewd acts or read lewd stories in front of children and, in so doing, achieve a measure of validation from impressionable children that society rightly withholds. And we live in an age when a boy can’t look at a doll without risking a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and, with it, a lifetime of prescription drugs. A tomboy hasn’t a chance in today’s education system.
There’s something inherently inconsistent with the fundamental construct of gender dysphoria based on there being only two genders and saying, ‘You, young child, were born the wrong one’. Matthew 18:5 to 6 offers this warning:
If anyone causes one of these little ones to stumble … it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
We have, rightly, replaced the age of millstones with the age of courts.
Quoting this passage is not an incitement to violence. Those attending ‘Leave Our Kids Alone’ protests have demonstrated that Christians do not make war, Christians make waves. The voices of all denominations must be as waves on the sand, synchronised and unrelenting. I welcome the attendance of the Muslim community in these protests. Both our holy books stand in strong defence of parental rights and childhood innocence.
Those who seek to destroy the family will certainly respond to my remarks with hostility. As a shield, let me offer Luke 6:26:
Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!
Leave our kids alone!
The West’s child exploitation scandal: groomers and abusers by Malcolm Roberts | The Spectator Australia
Recent decisions to approve soft-porn and sexually explicit material follows a new social ideology that says children must be exposed to queer adult sexual behaviours – including kink – and those who oppose risk being labelled as hate-fuelled bigots.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/lNh5Kx-ka3Y/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Sheenagh Langdonhttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSheenagh Langdon2023-06-28 09:37:092023-06-28 09:37:13Let Children be Children!
