- Thank you, Madam
acting Deputy President,
can you hear me this time?
- [Acting Deputy President]
We can, thank you.
- Thank you, as a servant
to the people of Queensland
and Australia,
I want Australians to stop being slaves
and to start living freely.
Let's look at some facts.
Australia's death toll from
COVID stands at over 650.
Let's compare Taiwan
with a similar population
of 24 million compared
with Australia's 25.
Taiwan with a similar
population on a tiny island,
higher population density
making virus transmission
far easier.
Taiwan close to mainland
China, the virus source.
Taiwan with an early
importing of the virus
into their shores than in Australia.
Taiwan with far more people
moving to and from China.
Well, how many deaths have
they suffered in Taiwan?
Seven.
Not 700, seven.
And while we locked up
everyone in quarantine
and trashed our economy
and racked up messy debt
for younger generations,
Taiwan is steaming ahead.
And that's despite its large markets
in Europe and America
suffering economically
due to the virus.
Taiwan has hardly had a blip.
Why, how can that be?
Several words data, plan,
leadership, trust and truth.
That's the secret to Taiwan
and other countries similar to Taiwan.
They're not the only ones.
They acted quickly closed their borders.
Following SARS in 2003,
Taiwan established the Central
Command Centre for epidemics.
By January 2020, the command
centre was coordinating
the government's response
to the coronavirus.
It quickly compiled a
list of 100 action items
including border controls,
school and work policies,
public communication plans
and resource assessments of hospitals.
Taiwan's government introduced
a travel ban on visitors
from China, Hong Kong and Macau.
Soon after the number of
Coronaviruses began to rise
in mainland China.
Anticipating the high demand
for mask in late January,
the Taiwanese government started rationing
the existing supply of mask.
Taiwan then leveraged the strength
of its manufacturing sector
and invested approximately $6.8 million
to create 16 new mask production lines.
This increased Taiwan's daily
mask production capacity
from 1.8 million mask to 8 million mask.
This has been called Taiwan last miracle.
The proof is in the putting.
They have as I said, seven
COVID deaths compared
with Australia's 652
and yet they were exposed to it earlier.
They have technology for early detection.
The Taiwanese government has
also used data technology
to help medical personnel identify
and trace suspected patients
and high risk individuals.
The Taiwanese government
also provides support
for those put under quarantine.
Local village leaders, for example
will bring a bag of
basic supplies like food
or books to quarantined the individuals.
They didn't lock up everyone,
they locked up the sick
and the vulnerable.
And then they say that's
the way democracies
are handling quarantine during
the Coronavirus outbreak.
And it's very different from
authoritarian governments.
Compare Taiwan with Mainland China.
This is the case with
democracies which should leverage
their data and technologies appropriately
so they can triage
people to the right place
and follow up with appropriate care.
We did not behave like a democracy.
Taiwan strategy was the opposite of ours.
Taiwan isolated the
sick and the vulnerable
and let everyone else get on
with their work and social lives.
And they've had 190th of the deaths
that Australia has had less.
They've had about 8%
Taiwan focused on people's lives.
Remembering medium-term and
long-term and immediate issues.
People's health in Taiwan is number one.
And because of that their economy
has continued beating hard.
So as I said, the key ingredients data,
the Taiwanese had the data,
they gathered the data,
if they didn't have it,
they went out and got it.
And then they shared that data,
they trusted their people.
They developed a plan very quickly
and they shared that
plan with their people.
Contrast that with our Prime Minister's,
six months hibernation,
six months hibernation,
six months hibernation,
and we still haven't seen
a solid plan.
We have been told lots
of times what's happened
and what has been happening
and what has been done,
but we aren't being
told what will be done.
The Taiwanese did, that's leadership.
And the Taiwanese leaders
trusted the people with the data
and the facts and with the plan.
And they shared the
responsibility on business owners
to manage their workplaces
to keep people safe.
Contrast that with Australia
severe lockdown, severe punishments.
And when we ran out of masks early on,
our state and federal
political leader said,
"Masks are not effective,
don't worry about it."
When we eventually build
up a stockpile of mask,
political leaders changed their tune
and said mask aren't essential.
Which one do we trust, which story?
Trust is built on truth,
there's no way around that.
Trust is built on truth,
trust is built on truth.
When leaders lack data,
lack a plan, like trust
and don't give trust, they
are eventually exposed.
And that's what we're seeing now.
The Prime Minister, the Victorian Premier,
and the Queensland
premier have been exposed
and are being exposed.
Not just on Coronavirus,
On the mess a country
was in before February
before the virus arrived on our shores.
Think about the real issue
here beyond Coronavirus,
the recovery.
The Prime Minister, the
Premiers are focused
on recovering back to February.
I haven't got a clue how to do it,
but that's the economic level
they want to get back to.
We should be focused instead
on the economic strength.
When we were number one in the world
for Gross Domestic Product
per person, income per person.
The Coronavirus revealed as
we said early on in March,
our country's demise since 1944.
The loss of our manufacturing.
We are now ranked with
underdeveloped nations
in the sophistication or
the lack of sophistication
of our manufacturing.
Why, Because we've jacked up
energy prices three times.
Triple what they were.
We've replaced our independence
with interdependency,
which is really another
word for dependency.
We've destroyed our economic resilience,
our economic sovereignty
and productive capacity,
thanks to the 1975 UN's
1975 labour agreement
that labour assigned in 1975
and the liberals ratified the next year.
We shipped theirs jobs to China.
That shipping of jobs and that destruction
of our productive capacity continued
with the 1992 UN Rio declaration,
that labour signed and the
Liberal Nationals implemented.
Then the UN's 1996
Theatre Climate Protocol
that destroyed our electricity sector,
and for which the Howard
government stole farmers rights
to use the land that farmers
had bought and owned.
Then the UN's 2015 Paris Agreement
that the National Liberals
signed to accelerate
the destruction of industry.
Manufacturing, agriculture,
trade exposed industries.
And then as I said,
we heard the Prime
Minister's initial response,
six months hibernation, no plan, no data.
Six months hibernation, no data, no plan,
six months hibernation.
Stories about what we
would rather have done
or what we did do rather
than what we will do.
Now we have calls for plan as I said,
to get back to the February
level of performance.
Still no data, still no plan.
And why after 80 years,
almost 80 years of pandering
to foreign agreements,
we are living in declining
living standards,
higher cost of living.
Why not aim to be number
one in per capita income?
Get down to the basics.
That's where we were in the
early years of our Federation.
But now, instead of having
competitive federalism,
we have competitive welfarism.
Thanks to Chairman Dan.
Chairman Dan sloppiness in Victoria,
led to complete breakdown of the virus
there and the rest of--
- Mister, Senator Robert you
must refer to the Premier
by his title or his correct name.
- Premier Daniel Andrews.
Thank you for the clarification.
We said from the start in One Nation,
that we need to treat the virus seriously.
We said we must put lives first.
We said this is not manual.
We said we weren't attending.
We said we would support
an open chequebook.
Do whatever is necessary.
And we said we would come looking
and hold people accountable.
Accountability.
The Queensland Premier has
said she's handed control
to the chief health officer, Dr. Young.
Who honestly admitted that
his sole responsibility
is people's physical health.
Who's gonna manage the economic health?
Who's gonna manage people's mental health.
Experts now estimate
that the number of deaths
from suicide will be far greater
than the deaths from COVID.
So Queensland Labour
has abdicated yet again,
they've tossed over the
running of the state
to a health officer who's
focused only on physical health,
not mental health, not economic health.
Just as the real labour
former MP Joe Miller
courageously publicly said
today, "Labour has abandoned us,
"Labour has abandoned us in Queensland."
I Listen to Neil Breen
on 4 BC in the mornings
and I commend him for holding
the government accountable.
Stories of labour control
freaks being so heartless.
Twins found flying to Sydney
for 16 hours on a 16 hour trip
rather than a half air helicopter ride
to Brisbane to get treatment.
One of the twins dying.
Cancer treatment for
Bella and a woman denied
just south of the border.
And in Fernando cancer
treatment and hospital loan
and eating his mom abandoned.
Suicides, a newsagent in Currumbin
who couldn't get there from the tweed,
had to drive to Sydney, fly to Brisbane,
drive to and to stay in quarantine,
then drive to Currumbin.
I mean, these are insane things.
And then the Queensland Premier,
remember welcome the Black
Lives Matter protesters.
30,000 people on our
streets spreading the virus.
The Prime Minister created
the national cabinet,
which is handy for dodging the
blame if it goes pear shaped.
And Senator Patrick, I must
commend him for pointing out
the messy failure.
The Prime Minister created a monster.
The premiers and the Prime
Minister making decisions
without data.
I wrote a letter, Madam
Acting Deputy President
to the Queensland Premier some time ago,
a few weeks ago, calling
for her to provide
the data on which she bases her decisions.
She pointed the two websites,
our staff went there, no data.
Let's look at the symptoms of
what's going on in our nation.
We've handed sovereignty
to foreign agencies,
Mathias Cormann, Senator
Cormann today in representing
the Prime Minister, his
response to my question
was we are going to live up
to our international obligations.
To hell with the
international obligations.
Let's put foreigners behind
the Australian people.
We have an obligation
in this in this senate
in this parliament to Australian people.
Look at the water act is gutting
our Food Water Act of 2007
is gutting of food production.
And Murray Darling Basin.
Look at energy policy where we've gone
from the lowest cost electricity
to the highest cost electricity.
Why aren't Australians
getting the benefit of air
wonderful high, high energy,
low pollution clean coal.
Why are farmers losing their
rights to use their land?
Why are Hunter Valley coal
miners with no protection,
no safety protection told
to not report accidents
will be sacked, no workers compensation
no accident pay,
40% underpaid compared to
permanence right next door
to them in the same job
on the same mine site.
Long service leave contributions
not being tallied correctly
and refusing to be audited
until I came onto the same.
No leave,
no protection.
Abandoned by the state government,
abandoned by federal government agencies,
abandoned by the Hunter
Valley CFMEU that made deals
with employers undermining these miners.
Local state and federal
labour MPs like Mr. Joffe
it's given abandoning them.
In Queensland increase in
labour, controlling farmers,
misquoting the science,
misrepresenting the
science to control farmers.
So what we see is now control.
And we see from Katrina Grace Kelly
writing in "The Australian."
"After all this time,
meaning seven months,
"we still haven't got a recovery plan."
Not just me that thinks this way.
And then we've got Terry
McLaren "Waiting for Godot,"
"From one debacle to the next
while we wait for a vaccine."
This is hopeless.
It is absolutely hopeless.
It is an abdication of responsibility,
an abdication of accountability.
We need to trust, truth
based on data for a plan
to ensure recovery back to Australia
being number one in the
world for per capita income.
We would start with just a simple plan
to recover from COVID.
Because at the moment,
as I said in my
introduction to this speech,
Australians are slaves.
We are slaves to COVID.
We know that there's a second wave coming
It started in Victoria.
What are we gonna do is
going to stay locked up
until everyone is that many, many waves
and we'd locked down each time.
That's no way to run a
country, that's not leadership.
That's abdication.
We need strong leadership, like Taiwan.
And we need to get it quickly
instead of being slaves to COVID.
We need to master COVID.
Taiwan has shown us, Sweden
has shown us to some extent.
You don't have to agree with their ideas,
but at least they've tried something.
Israel is mastered COVID,
Singapore is mastering COVID, South Korea.
Taiwan's not the only ones.
We need to get on with the
job of eating humble pie,
admitting our mistakes, getting
the data, telling the truth,
developing a plan,
providing real leadership.
That's what the people expect.
That's what we deserve.
And that's what One Nation is
going to continue to push for.
We are going to expose the
shortfalls in this government,
the shortfalls in the last
80 years of this government
and then we are going to put
Australia on the right track.
And we're keen to see that Nationals today
at least recognising
the some of the things
we've been saying and doing.
So there is hope
but we must get by with the truth, trust.
- Senator Robert, your time has expired.
