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Tents vs. Space Programs

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I seemed to have upset my colleagues when I questioned why more than half a million dollars was being spent on a grant exploring “Indigenous connections to outer space” and whether Aboriginal people “cared for other planets.”

How do such projects help Australians who are living in tents, skipping meals, or struggling to pay rent?

While people are hurting, the Labor government is spending $1 billion a year on grants like this.

Taxpayers deserve to know why.

— February | Senate Estimates

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Moving on, Dr Lara Daley at the University of Newcastle received a grant of $528,491 over three years, including salary and project costs to study: ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge in Australian space policy, using songlines and creation stories, aiming to broaden understandings of outer space by identifying and supporting Aboriginal connections between space and life on Earth to develop culturally respectful and environmentally responsible space exploration.’ How would Aboriginal environmental management be better than what these days is a collective understanding of environmental management that includes Aboriginal management of the environment? 

Prof. Shergold: My answer to this and other questions I suspect are going to be identical. I can do no more than describe the peer-review processes that are being used and hopefully make it clear why it would be entirely inappropriate for me or the board to step in on particular projects on which we would have far less expertise than the assessors to overturn decisions.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Professor Shergold. That doesn’t give the taxpayers much confidence. How would Aboriginal management be better than what these days is a collective understanding of environmental management full stop? Does the ARC expect Elon Musk to encounter an Indigenous population on Mars for which we should prepare? According to her bio, Dr Daley’s research is grounded in herself as, inter alia, ‘a white, non-Indigenous person on unceded Aboriginal country specialising in human and more-than-human research, including outer space as being already known, cared for and inhabited through Indigenous ontologies. Did Aboriginals inhabit other planets?  

CHAIR: The scope of estimates is very broad, but it is contained to the operations and expenditure of departments and agencies, and I—  

Senator ROBERTS: Okay, one more question.  

CHAIR: Okay.  

Senator ROBERTS: I wonder: did Aboriginals care for other planets in the solar system? You appear to be trying to extend Aboriginal mythology to other planets in the solar system. How far out—Pluto, Saturn, to infinity and beyond, as Buzz Lightyear said in Toy Story?  

Senator FARUQI: My God. Read some books, Malcolm!  

Senator ROBERTS: Australians are living in tents, struggling to buy food. Hundreds of thousands of people are struggling. Tens of thousands are living under bridges and in cars, and this is what you spend your $1 billion a year on. Unidentified speaker: Is there a question, Chair?  

Senator FARUQI: Chair, please put us out of our misery.  

CHAIR: Malcolm Roberts, please take a moment. Senators, I appreciate all the feelings at the table, but it is important that senators are able to be heard in silence as they ask their questions, as it is important for witnesses to be heard in silence and not spoken over. I will be enforcing this on both counts. Senator Roberts, you have the call to keep asking your question. Senators, regardless of what you think of it, please allow him to do so in silence.  

Senator ROBERTS: With Australians struggling, why is this what you spend your $1 billion a year on? Taxpayers would be saying, ‘Shame on you.’  

Senator Walsh: Was that for the professor or for me?  

Senator ROBERTS: Both.  

Senator Walsh: I’ll go first, Senator Roberts, and say that you are a politician and that you are expressing your political views right now—  

Senator ROBERTS: On behalf of many constituents, yes.  

Senator Walsh: and what we did is we removed politics from the processes that the ARC uses, because we believe in peer review of research not political review of research. The ARC’s process is rigorous. It is independent. As Professor Shergold has said, it is based on a strong network of peer reviewers. That is the decision of the government. We based that decision after an independent review of the ARC Act. Our reforms came into force from 1 July 2024, and we established an independent and expert ARC board to be responsible for the approval of grants, fellowships and the like. Professor Shergold and his team are discharging their obligations under the legislation to assess grant applications through these processes—through the panel, through peer review. They are discharging their obligations appropriately, and the government undermines efforts to undermine the trust in the Australian Research Council.  

Prof. Shergold: You are quite right to be directing the question to me. It isn’t a ministerial decision. It is in very large measure a decision for me and the board of the ARC. You’re quite right. The reality is, as I said, that we had about 1,000 grants that were approved last year. It is inevitable that there will be 10 or 20 of those that will become highly controversial for the reasons you’ve suggested. I suppose my view is—and it’s not giving any view on any particular research—that the fact that becomes controversial is not a bad thing. The whole purpose of research is to look for new paradigms, to interpret in new ways, to provoke and, to be honest with you, to raise hackles on existence. It is the way in which we continue to improve what we do economically, socially and environmentally and have debates about culture within Australia. I can’t, like you, sit down and say, ‘I think that looks like a really good piece of research to me, and that one looks a bit whacky.’ I’ve got to be dependent upon the experts that I use. My task, as I’ve said, is to make sure that they are doing it with integrity. I want to make sure, to see, that there are no conflicts of interest. I want to look at the outcomes of that research, to make sure that all universities are getting agreement that Indigenous scholars—not just on Indigenous issues, incidentally, but Indigenous scholars in all areas—are getting fair access. That’s what I’m looking at when I look at the 4,000 grant applications we receive and the thousands of decisions we make. It’s making sure that, in all ways, the peer review process is working and, with the board, looking at ways in which it can be improved all the time. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair. 

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Niche Ideology vs. Taxpayer Value

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I seemed to upset my colleagues when I questioned why the Australian Research Council is spending close to a billion dollars a year on grants that taxpayers would struggle to see any value in.

ARC leadership repeatedly hid behind “peer review processes”, refusing to justify cost-benefit while signing off on a $889,275 grant for an Arab/Muslim Australian social movements study, and another $322,213 grant that produced a commercial sold book Coming of Age in War on Terror.

While I respect independent review processes, the real issue is being ignored.

How is this supposedly “world-class system” allowing taxpayer money to be poured into niche ideological research with no demonstrated benefit to the people footing the bill?

The problem isn’t that research exists – it’s why taxpayers are being forced to fund it.

— February | Senate Estimates

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair, and thank you for appearing tonight. Good evening. I have here grant reference FT220100427 for beneficiary Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, covering the period from 2022 to 2027, with a grant amount $802,000, since increased to $889,275. The purpose of this very large grant—inter alia—is: Arab/Muslim Australian Social Movements since the 1970s: a hidden history … aims to recover previously untapped oral histories and rare archival collections of Arab/Muslim Australian activists … Who have struggled against external systems and internal conflicts to build a socially just future … include a greater understanding of the transformative activism of communities whose movement work is often relegated to the margins. This is what you’re spending taxpayer money on. What is the cost benefit of this study sufficient to justify an almost $900,000 price tag? 

Senator FARUQI: Why do you hate Muslims, Malcolm?  

Senator ROBERTS: I don’t; we have some in this party.  

Prof. Shergold: Let me answer that question and I’m happy to do so because the key change to the ARC legislation, as you will be aware, is that, at this stage—in most instances, not all—it is the ARC and board which make the decision on grants and not the minister. So the minister is clearly at arm’s length. Now, what do you do if you’re on a board and you are trying to make sure that you use public funds for the best purposes available for projects that are deemed by universities to be in the national interest? If you look at the number of applications that come forward, you’ll start to understand what a challenge it is. I think last year—I’m looking for the numbers—there was something about 4,000 applications.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is this getting to the answer of my question?  

Prof. Shergold: I am going to get there, because I want you to share my pain. We’ve got 4,000 applications and about, give or take, 25 per cent are accepted. It is quite unrealistic and very bad governance to imagine I and the board members sit down and look at 4,000 applications, even as well as presented as you’ve just done with this one, and say yes or no. How do you do it? You try and make sure you have the very best world-class system, which is a peer-review process. The role of myself, the role of the board, isn’t to go through and second-guess those expert peer reviewers in the decisions they make. My role—an important one; I feel a burden of responsibility—is to make sure that the processes that are being used are best practice in peer review and are done with honesty.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is there a cost benefit?  

Prof. Shergold: This was a proposal that came forward out of about was about 1,200, give or take, that were accepted last year.  

Senator ROBERTS: So you can’t tell me—  

Prof. Shergold: What I can tell you is we are using the best peer-review processes that we have available. It was thought by members of college of experts and then by disciplinary experts that this would be an important and innovative and, no doubt, provocative piece of research.  

Senator ROBERTS: But you can’t tell me the cost benefit.  

Prof. Shergold: Well, I tell you what I can do. I can tell you the cost benefit as assessed of the ARC grants overall, which we had undertaken a few years ago—  

Senator ROBERTS: Is that for this grant?  

Prof. Shergold: which gave a return on all our grants of about I think $3.20 on the dollar, something like that.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll move on. This isn’t your first grant to the doctor. There was also grant DP110101249 titled ‘Youth in the digital age: Being young and Muslim in Australia’ for $322,213 covering 2018 to 2021. Now my question is: why didn’t you use the correct name of the project, which was: ‘”Trust, Politics, and Fear: ‘Generation 9/11’ Muslim and Non-Muslim youth compared”‘?  

Prof. Shergold: Well, it wasn’t my piece of research.  

Senator ROBERTS: This grant allowed the doctor to write a book titled Coming of Age in the War on Terror, published by Allen and Unwin. Why are you funding this person to write a book which she sold commercially and for which the doctor most likely received payment? Did she?  

Prof. Shergold: I have no idea—  

Senator ROBERTS: That is what bothers me.  

Prof. Shergold: if she received payment from that. But I am delighted overall when pieces of research that we fund end up in books or articles. I think that was a good use of money.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, this is socialising costs and privatising profits. Why is the Australian Research Council allowed to use taxpayer money to provide a commercial benefit to their friends in academia—paid to write the book, paid to sell the book? This seems to be a great scam going on here for academia.  

Prof. Shergold: Well, in answering the question, and you were frustrated at the delay, the one thing I did show is how this is a best-practice peer-review process, and to identify that as a scam is probably stretching it somewhat.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, why is the ARC allowed to do this—socialise costs and privatise benefits? 

Senator Walsh: The ARC’s role in the process is through its independent and expert board to use the process of peer review that Professor Shergold spoke about to be responsible for the approval of grants and fellowships and so on. That’s the ARC’s role and they rely on independent peer review to discharge their obligations. I think you’re asking questions about academics then publishing books after they have conducted research which may be funded by the ARC or may be supported in other ways. I think that publishing opportunity is just a part of higher education; it is standard procedure.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, you have been funding this person continuously since 2018. Dr Randa Abdel Fattah is a radical Islamic activist who just participated in the figurative ‘burning down’ of the Adelaide Writers Festival. Is this grant nothing more than the ARC funding Islamic activism?  

Prof. Shergold: I won’t repeat the process which the minister has described well. I will say we have a college of experts carefully selected who do a first assessment. We then have detailed assessments from over 20,000 assessors from Australia and around the world that then assess each of those pieces of research. And roughly about 25 per cent of them manage to make the cut. I wish I could fund more. There are many more good projects you could, but that’s the truth. There is a process. I can’t possibly step in and start to overrule decisions of that process on the basis that I don’t like particularly the political advocacy that someone does. I’ve got to make sure on your behalf that that process is being used as well as it possibly can be to make sure that decisions are being made fairly, honestly, transparently and in the national interest.  

Senator ROBERTS: They’re nice words. But I’d leave this to the taxpayers to decide. The doctor has now organised an alternative event to the Adelaide Writers Festival, which, by all reports, is designed to exclude people of a certain faith or belief. Minister, I keep on hearing about social cohesion and yet this grant has gone to a person who is attacking social cohesion to advance Islamic propaganda. Why is your grants program encouraging social conflict?  

Senator Walsh: There are a lot of incorrect premises there about the role of the ARC and the grants process and the investigation that was undertaken by Macquarie University. Essentially, Professor Shergold has already gone through that process. To go over it again, briefly, the minister wrote to the ARC and, I think, to Professor Shergold and asked the ARC to look into this particular grant to the doctor and make sure that the grant was being appropriately used. The way that works is that it’s the university that receives the grant that is then tasked with doing the investigation. Macquarie University appointed academic experts to conduct the review. The review investigated whether the grant funding was being used for its intended purpose. During that process, the funding was suspended. The process concluded and the grant was reinstated. It was reinstated, as I understand it, because there was no evidence that there was an inappropriate acquittal of public funds. So that’s the process.  

Prof. Shergold: The only thing I would add is that, of course, we will continue to review this grant, just as we review all the other grants.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Minister. Just moving on then—  

Senator FARUQI: Chair, may I raise a point of order?  

CHAIR: Yes.  

Senator FARUQI: Senator Roberts is making completely unfounded and false allegations about a very respected academic and researcher. I would really like you to ask him to withdraw those or stop that line of questioning.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’d like to move on, Chair.  

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, you need to wait for me to respond to the point of order before you can direct the committee to move on. I take your point, Senator Faruqi, but I don’t believe there has been a breach of the standing orders from what I can observe. But I would just remind all senators, as we continue through this session, to do so respectfully of the witnesses and topics we’re dealing with and of each other at the table. Senator Roberts, you still have the call.  

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Your Taxes, Their Blunder: The BOM Mess

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The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has managed to spend $96 million of your money on a new website including live radar images that is a step backward.

I’ve been hearing from countless Australians who are not happy with the “new and improved” site. It’s harder to navigate, requires more clicks to find basic data and has stripped away the topographical detail that people actually rely on.

If a private company delivered a product this bad after spending nearly $100 million, heads would roll.

I asked the BOM: has anyone been fired, demoted, or even counselled for this failure?

The answer was a lot of nothing really. I did manage to get one win for common sense: The Bureau has committed to keeping the old radar site active until the new one is actually fit for purpose.

— Senate Estimates | February 2026

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Let’s go back to the new weather radar. Implementation of the new weather radar has been a failure. Has anyone been fired for wasting $96 million of taxpayers’ money?

Senator Watt: We went over this at the last estimates hearing. I think you were talking about the change to the bureau’s website rather than a weather radar.

Senator Roberts: The new website.

Senator Watt: Yes. It was explained at the last hearing that the portion of money attributable to the website costs was partly about an overall systems upgrade across the bureau’s meteorology systems in general. So, with that introduction, Dr Minchin might want to—

Senator Roberts: Minister, it has tarnished the reputation of the BOM.

Senator Watt: I understand that.

Senator Roberts: It has made a lot of people unhappy with the BOM’s service, so I’m wondering if anyone’s been counselled, demoted or had a note put on their service record for this failure.

Senator Watt: I’d need to have Dr Minchin answer.

Dr Minchin: Senator, I’m not aware of anyone being fired or demoted on this basis.

Senator Roberts: Chastised?

Dr Minchin: Senator, as I think you may be aware, I joined the bureau about three weeks after the website was launched. My focus as CEO is on moving forward, and, as I said at last hearing, I accepted that the website redesign had not met all users’ needs and that we were working hard with the team on addressing the feedback that we’ve received. We’ve received significant feedback from the Australian community and we are actively working on making releases to the website to improve it to meet people’s expectations. My philosophy on this as CEO is that I have a very committed team, who are working incredibly hard to meet the Australian public’s expectations. That doesn’t mean we get it right all the time, and I’m very confident that the team is totally focused on the task of improving Australians’ access to weather information, including through upgrades to the website as it goes forward.

Senator Roberts: I accept, Dr Minchin, that sometimes it’s not appropriate to chastise until you know the source of the problem, but has anyone been questioned about it? Have you done an investigation into it? It seems to be significant funds, and you’ve got to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. What reassurance can you give us that it won’t happen again?

Dr Minchin: What I can say is I don’t believe the website is a complete failure, and I’ve been public in saying that before. I think what has happened is it’s met 80 to 90 per cent of its intended outcomes and it’s missed the boat on a few key user experiences for some parts of the community, and we are working hard on addressing those. It’s clear the radar is part of the assessment. We moved quickly to adjust the view of the radar to improve that. We’ve made adjustments to the navigation of the website and we have a number of other rollouts happening over the next few months that will improve that. I can absolutely assure you that the team within the bureau are really dedicated to their task and are totally focused on improving the situation so that all Australians can have access to the weather data that they require.

Senator Roberts: Have you required contractors to complete the fixes for free, owing to their failure, or are you throwing more money from taxpayers at the problem? Are you rewarding contractors for failing?

Dr Minchin: You’ve categorised this as a contractor failure. The contractors have done what we asked them to do. What I think is very clear is we did not get all of the user experience testing and did not capture all of the subsequent detail and feedback that we’ve received from the community. So we’re working hard on addressing that. That will inevitably require investment, but that investment was already planned for as part of the website release. We always knew that there would be fixes that would be required. What probably caught the bureau a little bit unawares was the extent of the feedback that we received, but we’re working through that very actively.

Senator Roberts: It was pretty strong. If we look at topography, the colour graduations used to be based on topography, and now the national parks are just all green. Did the people who did the map understand topography?

Dr Minchin: Sorry, Senator, are you referring to the radar map?

Senator Roberts: Yes, I’m sorry.

Dr Minchin: The background to the radar map is a compromise, always, of the features that are of interest for the community—primarily about the townships. We are adjusting that. Just as one example of an upcoming upgrade, we will be bringing that into line with our iPhone and Android app that actually shows a background of the reach of the radars as well. So it will be clear where radar coverage exists and where it does not within the country. That’s an evolving process. I should also highlight that the public can choose their view of what appears on that map through various choices in the settings of the map view.

Senator Roberts: I’m told that the old map, which did show topography colour gradations, is appearing to visitors who search something like ‘weather Brisbane’, rather the new site, but the address is the new site. Have you gone back to using the old site for certain functions?

Dr Minchin: I think what you’re referring to is that there are a number of third-party providers who provide our radar data and other information through their applications. They receive those through our FTP service. They don’t access it directly from the website. In some cases they choose to visualise that data differently to the way that the bureau chooses to do that. I think that’s actually a good thing, meeting different user needs out in the community. They’re still accessing the same information, but it is, as I said, coming through our registered user services, which are not through the website itself.

Senator Roberts: Usability of the website is poor. Users are complaining that it takes multiple clicks to see what used to be available at a glance. What timeframe can you give people for getting the new site up to the standard of the old site?

Dr Minchin: There are ongoing releases happening over the next few months. We accept, as I said, that some users have found aspects of the website difficult and have been providing feedback on that. Another good example is navigation. We’ll be rolling out the ability to navigate by postcode in one of the next releases. We’re continually bringing those updates on board so that, as we get feedback about what is useful to the community to make their experience with the website better, we’re acting on that and we’re rolling that out with regular updates.

Senator Roberts: So what timeframe can you provide for getting the new site up to the standard of the old site, so that people will know?

Dr Minchin: I don’t accept that we’re trying to reach the standard of the old site, because the old site was a problem. It was very difficult to navigate. It was inaccessible to many sectors of the community. Website updates will never finish. As new information and new products come on board, we will continue developing the website. But we are hoping to address most of the major tranches of concern in releases over the next six months.

Senator Roberts: The old radar is still available on the ‘reg’ subdomain, I’m told. Will you give an undertaking that the old site will remain available until the new site can be made to work?

Dr Minchin: We certainly will not be turning off our ‘reg’ capability until we are confident that the Australian community are comfortable with our new radar capability. Senator Roberts: Thank you.

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We are in unconscionable levels of debt – Alan Jones and Malcolm Roberts on ADH TV

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Australia’s trillion dollar debt is eye-watering. But here’s the government wasting money on ridiculous grants and schemes. We have to turn this boat around.

Transcript

Alan Jones:

We’ve heard endless overtures from the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, about his budget on October 25, there’ll be no new taxes. And yet, as I said earlier tonight, we have unconscionable levels of debt. Labour has to honour more than $2,000,000 of election promises. The growth in spending for the NDIS is forecast to be over 12%. That’s just growth. And in defence spending over 4%. And, of course, then there’s aged care and health and, of course, the cost of servicing the Commonwealth debt will increase by 14%. That’s why they’re carrying on about Stage 3 tax cuts, but that won’t get them out of trouble.

The way to go, if you’ve got the guts, is to cut waste. Let me give you some examples. I’m all for the arts, but how do we give a female artist $20,000 for her Yawning Room at a Woolloomooloo gallery? How do you give $20,000 to an art group for Project Immaculate where a Melbourne artist is filming and recording, listen to this, quote, “monthly live self insemination to elevate the experience of queer reproduction and disrupt heteronormative parenting narratives.” Why is $80,000 given for drawing a bum puppet with the image of the then Prime Minister Scott Morrison, on its posterior? $80,000 went to a Chinese Australian poet writing about toilet rolls and bodily fluids. Another $80,000 went to a bloke, this is last year, and what were the Labour Party saying about it in Opposition. It should have been a field day, but $80,000 to a bloke who said he was an experimentalist and a poet and that quote, “Poetry always accompanies bowel movements. There is a mysterious connection between the two.” $80,000. Is that a palpable waste of taxpayers money? Ideologically driven rubbish? And Government and Opposition have done nothing?

Then you get the staff levels of politicians. As I’ve said many times, I worked for a Prime Minister. We had five staff. Now I know things have changed, but does any Australian leader need almost 60 staff? If Dr. Chalmers wants to talk about waste and saving money, which he should, rather than raising taxes, let him start with his indulged ministerial colleagues.

Senator Malcolm Roberts is an outstanding, highly intelligent, splendidly credentialed One Nation Senator from Queensland. Only this week he has raised what he called wasteful Federal Government spending, where two government departments alone spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayers money last financial year on lavish business class flights. He cited one public servant charging taxpayers $4,955 for a 55 minute business class flight from Canberra to Sydney.

Senator Malcolm Roberts joins me. Malcolm Roberts, thank you for your time. Hang on. $5,000 for 55 minutes. What was going on?

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, he must have been very, very tall and very cramped to justify the extra room in business class for just 55 minutes. I think he should be able to hang on. But, Alan, this just is symptomatic of the sense of entitlements, the low accountability and the absolutely atrocious governance in this country.

Alan Jones:

I mean, you’ve provided a list here as long as your arm. I mean, if it’s someone else’s money, of course, taxpayers’ money, away they go.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, Alan, when I walk on board a plane, I walk through business class and I go to the back of the bus. I walk past the Greens and business class, past the Liberals in business class, past the Nationals in business class, past the Labour in business class and plus past the bureaucrats in business class. Why can’t they go to the back just like I do? And in fact, you get a better flight because you listen to people. You have a good natter to people. Isn’t that what it’s about? Listening to constituents?

Alan Jones:

Yes, I mean, you make this point, don’t you? And it’s so true that many hardworking, tax paying Australians who are watching you tonight have never flown business class in their life. Yet here is workers’ money, taxes, being used for staff to fly up the front of the plane.

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s right. And these people are paying their wages. These people are paying their flights. These people are paying the premium for the business class experience, the free booze, and yet they’ve never been on a plane, some of them, and yet they’ve never been, certainly on business class.

Alan Jones:

There is a case for ministers and others flying business class where they get some work done and whatever, but on a 55 minute flight, for God’s sake, I wouldn’t know how you’d run up a bill of $5,000. But, why, ministerial staff, Malcolm? I mean, you’ve never been a minister. Your boss has never been a minister. This is completely over the odds. The indulged way in which these people have staff that could never, ever be fully occupied because there’s the department as well. I mean, if you’re the Minister for Industrial Relations with a stack of staff or the Treasurer, then there’s a Treasury as well full of bureaucrats. How the hell can these staff numbers be justified?

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, they can’t be, Alan. You made a very good point at CPAC. Let me just quote your figures. The gross national debt was at 20% of GDP in 2013. That was the end of the Labour party, time in Canberra. We are now at over 42% of GDP. And that’s with what? Nine years of Liberal National Party government.

Alan Jones:

Absolutely.

Malcolm Roberts:

The so-called restrained ones, the fiscally conservative party.

Alan Jones:

Oh yes.

Malcolm Roberts:

And yet we’re at 42% of GDP.

Alan Jones:

I mean, it used to be raison d’être that the coalition, the Liberals would manage your money better. And those figures that I cited indicate that it’s just been an extravaganza. Look, Malcolm, it might be unfashionable to say it. And I’m offering no reflection on a court case currently taking place in the ACT, but here were ministerial staffers, plural, out on the town, getting drunk. Now, when I worked in Canberra, we had no time to be going to clubs or bars, even if we knew where they were. We were just too damn busy. It prompts a question, doesn’t it? What kind of worldly informed advice could any 24 year old give to a government minister?

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, Alan, I find the same problems at Parliament House. I never stop. I haven’t got time to go out into the clubs. I haven’t got time to go and get boozy. But what it is is the rot always starts at the top. The fish rotting starts at the head of the fish. And the same with government. What we’ve got is a very lax system in Parliament. We’ve got very low accountability between the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. And what we see is, I mean, we are talking about $5,000 flights to Sydney. We’re talking about the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, $5,500 flights, $4,300 flights, $4,184, $4,095, $5,063 flights on business class. We’re talking about that. But the bigger malaise in this country, that is almost insignificant compared to the bigger malaise. We are talking about policies in this country that are not based on data and that contradict the real world data. We’re talking about policies that are costing people trillions of dollars, not billions, Alan, trillions of dollars. You know that from the energy consequences.

Alan Jones:

Well, I’m going to talk about …

Malcolm Roberts:

We’re talking about …

Alan Jones:

I’ll cover that energy thing in a moment. I just want to finish on staff. See all this nonsense about the Teals being refused staff by Anthony Albanese. I give Anthony Albanese full marks. These people automatically have four staff and they want more. I’d like to know what Zali Steggall has done that benefits any constituent in the seat of Warringah.

Malcolm Roberts:

There’s no reason for that in a small seat of Warringah. Look at Anthony Albanese’s seat. It’s three kilometres across in radius roughly, 32 square kilometres in total area. Queensland is, what was it now? I’ve forgotten the figures, but you know it’s 2,800 kilometres from north to south. It’s 2,000 kilometres east to west. We need staff to get around and listen and with us. So there is a need for some staff for senators, but not for MPs in inner city suburbs.

Alan Jones:

I don’t want to let you go without talking about this cost that you talked about, which was a very valid point. What are the costs to the taxpayer of policies? Now, we’ve seen this week, the very thing that you and I have warned about, energy price is going to climb through the roof. Up to 35% increases next year. Business and households won’t be able to cope. You and I have warned of this. We talked about 17 internationally respected climate scientists from six nations including Australia and covering many disciplines of climate science and climatology who have confirmed your conclusion that CSIRO, our leading research entity in this country, had never presented logical scientific points needed as the basis of policy in climate change.

Malcolm Roberts:

That is correct. And what’s more, what we find is that the CSIRO in their first presentation to me, which lasted two and a half hours, as did the other two presentations, the first one, they admitted that they have never said to any government that there is danger from carbon dioxide from human activity. So I said, “Who has said that danger?” And they said, “Well, you’ll have to go and ask the ministers who’ve been saying it.” The second presentation, they admitted to me, Alan, under cross examination of their presentation that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented. Yet the whole global warming, global climate live was based on the premise that we’ve got unprecedented temperatures. Complete rubbish. Complete rubbish. And now we’ve got trillions of dollars going to be blown and wasted and opportunity costs. We’re going to have Australia decimated.

Look, Alan, when I was a boy, I was born in India for first seven years there. Then we moved to the Hunter Valley. I lived in the bush outside of a town called Kurri Kurri. I used to cycle to school and I went past the aluminium smelter at Alcan. That was built, as was the Tomago smelter, because they were attracted to Hunter Valley because of our clean, high quality, coal, which made cheap electricity. Australia had the world’s cheapest electricity. We’ve now got amongst the world’s highest.

Alan Jones:

We certainly have.

Malcolm Roberts:

But the primacy of energy is really fundamental. You don’t get human progress without ever decreasing energy prices. From 1850 to 1970, we had a relentless reduction in the unit cost of electricity, which dramatically rose productivity, which dramatically gave us our standard of living. We went from scratching in the dirt in famines in the course of 120 years to being free of all of that.

That’s human progress. In the last few decades, we have reversed that. And instead of having a decreasing price of electricity, we’ve had a doubling and a trebling of electricity prices. Now the significant thing of that is that not only does human progress get reversed, but manufacturing, these days, the largest cost component is not labour. The largest cost component has been electricity for quite some time in manufacturing. When we increase our electricity prices due to the highest subsidies of solar and wind in the world, we are double the next highest per capita. We are sending our manufacturing to China. China is manufacturing with our coal, wind turbines and solar panels, shipping them to here where we subsidise the Chinese to instal them. We subsidise the Chinese to run them. We are gutting our manufacturing. We have got farmers in North Queensland, Central Queensland, Southern Queensland, during the last drought, not planting fodder crops because the cost of electricity for pumping water was too high. And this is absurd. We are destroying our country. I call it the solar and wind, a kamikaze malinvestment. Kamikaze malinvestment. That’s what these things are. Parasitic.

Alan Jones:

Well, I’ve called it a national economic suicide note. We’ve run out of time, Malcolm, but I just want to commend you, this man called the Climate Change Bill. Talks in simple language, and I’ll say it slowly. Malcolm Roberts, Senator. Malcolm Roberts, that’s this bloke here, has said, and I’ve said this too, but he’s put it in different lingo. The Climate Change Bill is the biggest change to Australian lives, the Parliament of Australia has ever considered. I’ve called it a national economic suicide note, and that’s where we’re heading.

Malcolm, good to talk to you. We’ll keep talking to you. We’ll have you back. Thanks for your time tonight.

Malcolm Roberts:

Thank you, Alan. Thank you for what you’re doing.

Alan Jones:

Not at all. There he is. Senator, Malcolm Roberts.

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JETSETTING STAFF CHARGE TAXPAYERS FOR LUXURY FLIGHTS

Senator Roberts has slammed wasteful Federal government spending as FOI documents reveal two government departments alone spent nearly a quarter million dollars of taxpayer money on lavish business class flights last financial year.

“Public servants need to get the message that taxpayer money isn’t theirs to splash on luxury flights,” Senator Roberts said.

“A public servant charging taxpayers $4,955 for a 55 minute business class flight from Canberra to Sydney is simply outrageous and shouldn’t be allowed.”

“Many hardworking, tax-paying Australians have never flown business class in their life. Using Australian taxes for staff to fly up the front of the plane and live a life of luxury is an insult.”

“This is just one example of the disregard some have for taxpayers’ money. Unfortunately, it’s all too common across government.”

“If the Prime Minister is serious about budget repair he needs to rein in his wasteful departments. It looks like the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry should be first on his list.”

FOI Documents – FY21/22 Staff Business Class flights:

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