Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia. It's a matter of urgency that our elected parliamentary representatives are increasingly not a reflection of the typical, everyday Australian. It's fundamental to our Australian democracy that people can demonstrate against incursions of their freedoms. I applaud any politician who has the guts, the integrity and the resolve to make a stand for the people, even if it is against their party line.

Senator Chisholm has done well to show his true self in this MOU, where he believes that only good order should reign at the expense of individual voices. Senator Chisholm clearly believes politicians ought not to use their public profile and status to represent the deep concerns of the people. Does Senator Chisholm suggest politicians use their high profile and status to be solely compliant and silent? I believe that politicians have a duty to listen to our consciences and speak out when we believe something is not in the interests of the Australian people. Senator Chisholm's urgency motion says more about his narrow Labor perspective on life than it does about the topic or about the Australian people. Personally, I'm proud to stand beside anyone who has the courage of their convictions and who is brave enough to take their unpopular stand and risk ridicule for their beliefs. I admire anyone, particularly politicians, who have not lost sight of the Australian people, our democracy, our values or our freedoms and who will stand with the people regardless of the party line. I have done so and will proudly continue to do so.

Senators Rennick and Antic, and Mr George Christensen and Mr Craig Kelly, have the mettle to stand for a broader Australia. I support their efforts to question, expose and call out the deliberate misuse and abuse of science—the fraudulent use of science—as a basis for lockdowns and vaccine mandates. Senator Chisholm's motion has demonstrated his belief that there should be only one world view held by all, and Senator Chisholm will decide what that view is no matter how far removed this groupthink is from how Australians see ourselves. The good order of the Australian community requires debate and dissent, compliance and cohesion, and, most of all, robustness and honesty. Our social and democratic institutions—failing, as they are, to protect the rights and freedoms of the people—must be robust enough to embrace a debate from the people and from politicians who represent them.

Why is there low, and declining, trust in MPs? Here is a quote from someone today: 'Declining trust in our institutions is not the problem. It is the solution.' We need to have less of the institutions. It's a sad day when any politician, whose career and life is predominantly political, thinks that his narrow world perspective has any resonance with the Australian people at large. Senators Rennick and Antic, and Mr Christensen, are fighting for the people because they themselves are of the people, having carved out independent careers from the city to the land, facing uncertainties along the way. Senator Hanson and I have this same grounding in real life. From their actions these representatives, like us, feel what the people are feeling. They know, as One Nation knows, that unnecessary lockdowns, debilitating and inhuman vaccine mandates, and an absence of longitudinal testing on vaccines is just not good enough. They know that the people deserve better and are willing to stand up for what is right.

They also talk about ivermectin—a proven, safe, effective, affordable and accessible treatment that has stopped COVID wherever it has been used properly. The government falls silent on it and actually withdrew that from the people. The real matter of urgency here is that too many Labor, Liberal, National and Greens politicians do not have the courage to stand against this attack on our freedom and basic human rights. Too many in this place stand meek and silent while businesses fail and while everyday Australians are coerced into a repeated, unproven medical experimental procedure in order to feed their families. It's time that gutless, groupthink politicians are consigned to the biowaste bin of history.