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

Welcome home, Julian Assange. Thank you, Julian Assange. Thank you, the people who have pressured politicians to release a persistent and determined whistleblower. People power and some of us MPs eventually pressured a failing and flailing Prime Minister to do the right thing. Congratulations to Julian's family, his wife, Stella, his father, John, and his legal teams. We are all glad Julian's home. We are glad you've fanned what were the dying embers of good governance in America. That has important significance for the world. Julian Assange's work is helping the American nation. It's helping Americans, helping democracy and helping humanity, as I'll explain.

Firstly, as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I remind everyone that, in a representative democracy, the people grant power temporarily to government to work for the good of the people, particularly in a proven constitutional monarchy such as ours in which our Constitution places we the people at the top of the hierarchy. Through you, Acting Deputy President, I thank Senator Shoebridge for his motion, and I want to read this from it:

That the Senate—

(a) affirms that it is essential to protect whistleblowers, to expand their protections and to include a clear public interest test;

(b) commits to urgently reforming whistleblower laws and creating a Whistleblower Protection Authority;

(c) celebrates the return to Australia of journalist and whistleblower Julian Assange …

I support this.

In this age of government overreach and distinct loss of our freedom of speech, I strongly support protecting our brave whistleblowers. It's essential. Whistleblowers need protection from retribution, particularly from overzealous governments who would prefer to keep the people in the darkness of ignorance and keep people uninformed and unaware of the dirty side of politics. That dirty side abounds throughout the world. Other villains include the mouthpiece media, the legacy media, the Big Brother globalist media who are always printing to their master's agendas and whose calls for freedom of the press ring hollow when they pick and choose, cull and remain silent on the day's most important issues. These issues include the lies of the safety and effectiveness of COVID mRNA injections, the failure to recognise the COVID jab injuries and the unnecessary destruction of the Australian economy through unfounded and often contradictory government directions, restrictions, mandates and lies.

COVID awakened people to the mouthpiece media's lies and contradictions being propagandist and to the shills pushing the lines and lies of big pharma and big government. The mouthpiece media, the globalist media, failed to report the truth. It failed its role of holding governments and politicians to account. Instead of watching over politics, the globalist Big Brother media became an arm of globalists pushing their global agenda through the American Democratic Party; the Democrats' owner, George Soros; and their crooked, inhuman flag-bearers, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Some of the people who woke up have formed their own media enterprises. The alternative new people's media is telling the truth and driving the return of freedom. For example, there's Tucker Carlson; Joe Rogan; Tim Pool; ADH TV, in Australia; TNT Radio, globally and in Australia; Topher Field; the Australian Citizens Party; Youtube's In the Interests of the People; Spectator TV; Efrat Fenigson, the Light newspaper—to name just a few in Australia and around the world. Now that whistleblower voices are starting to be listened to, we must all recognise that the people's media and individuals are entitled to speak out without fear of retribution or censorship.

Why are governments opposed to this? Because they're scared of what the people will do when made aware of the lies and deceit that have led to the destruction of so many lives in Australia and in which government decisions played a huge part. Look at what happened to doctors and others who exposed the improper behaviour of agencies such as Ahpra and ATAGI, who mandated dangerous drugs while knowing that they had not been adequately researched or trialled to ensure their safety or even their effectiveness. Doctors and nurses were punished under Australia's new Stasi: Ahpra. Those doctors and other health professionals who were brave enough to speak up have been persecuted and had their careers destroyed. Where were the whistleblower protections for them? While I remind everyone that always beneath control there is fear, that knowledge is no comfort for honest, courageous whistleblowers under attack. How can we stand here in the Senate and still not be able to rely on safeguards that can encourage, not destroy, these people who see wrongdoing and that don't punish them for speaking out honestly? When governments withhold information, it's intended to control what may occur if the truth is exposed.

There exist, through state and Commonwealth governments, opportunities for making freedom-of-information or right-to-information requests to access government held documents. This is supposedly to allow transparency in government processes and to hold governments accountable for their actions. Misuse of this process allows governments to artificially create exceptions, thereby avoiding the production of a document that may embarrass the government. We've seen that—arrogantly hiding information on abuse of taxpayer funds or the misuse of authority that citizens have handed to governments temporarily on behalf of serving the people in the national interest. Examples of this hiding are arguing that the document was produced for cabinet consideration or must be withheld to protect commercial-in-confidence arrangements. These excuses supposedly warrant the information remaining hidden from sight. There are many examples where these arguments have been found to have been made unjustifiably to avoid scrutiny—so much for the Albanese Labor government's promised transparency. The other cheek of the uniparty were the Liberals under Scott Morrison. What's clearly needed is a full reform of whistleblowing protection across the board. It must cover the private and public sector.

Let's turn to discussing democracy. For a democracy to fully function it requires the contribution of participants and people in the process and freedom from any intimidation, including freedom from any intimidation that prevents free speech and the sharing of differing views. In a totalitarian state the people are scared of the government. In a true democracy government is scared of the people. What do we have in Australia? I'd argue that we have closer to a dictatorship.

The mouthpiece Big Brother media did not assist this process during the dark COVID early-response days. There was no publication of alternative views or information. Indeed, there was suppression of credible scientific and medical knowledge, facts and data—suppression of facts about COVID injections being killers, suppression that led to deaths of tens of thousands of Australians and perhaps millions of people globally and suppression at the hands of big pharma, big government, big tech, big media and globalist agencies like the UN and World Health Organization.

The result: homicide. Even the suggestion of alternative treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine or critical comments about existing treatments from big pharma were either suppressed or punished for not following the government's line. The government lies. I have to wonder how key decision-makers were bought off to destroy the whistleblowers, including highly respected, qualified and experienced doctors, scientists and allied health professionals, who were loudly sounding the alarm bells. Clearly the pharmaceutical companies where the big winners and the big controllers. It's the whistleblowers who deserve our thanks though. Thank you.

We now know that Pfizer did not do the research they claimed they did and the mouthpiece media told us they did. Pfizer held back unfavourable results—the deaths of more than 200 people in their trials. Pfizer lied to America's FDA, their drug approval agency. Pfizer lied to our TGA, Australia's drug approval agency, and other key bodies and decent organisations that will now, along with others, face massive lawsuits for the biggest medical fraud in history—for depriving people of their ability to live a normal life and for aiding homicide.

One of the best-known Australian whistleblowers is Mr Julian Assange—finally back and free in Australia. Look at the pain he's had to endure. He would be one of those whistleblowers who would have benefited from whistleblower protection. It's a pity that freedom-of-speech protections in the American constitution cannot be used to protect non-American citizens. The Australian Constitution does not provide protection for freedom of speech other than in the limited capacity of political communication, as Australia's High Court determined. Freedom of speech generally should be provided through Commonwealth and state legislation, as well as through specific provisions that provide protection for whistleblowers. Is there anything more important in a democracy? I argue there's not; it's fundamental.

This whole area needs to be reformed and improved, and I thank Senator Shoebridge for raising it. In a democratic system, it's the people who are central and it's the people who vote in their representatives to govern on the people's behalf—for the people. Australia is unique as the only country whose people were actually consulted on and, through a referendum, voted for their Constitution. Only the people can change the Constitution. It's the people who choose, via an election, who form their government. We Australians must be sure to respect and treasure our democratic process, otherwise things could go wrong, as happens from time to time in the United States.

We do not want a democracy that can turn a blind eye on the shenanigans of people like Hillary Clinton. Her practices were exposed in parts of the documents released through WikiLeaks that led to the relentless pursuit of Julian Assange. This is the woman who was a candidate for the presidency of the United States. One of her solutions of retribution was to propose droning Assange—murdering Julian Assange. No wonder she and the Democratic Party wanted to suppress Julian Assange.

Similarly, bureaucrat Mike Pompeo proposed an attempt to assassinate Julian Assange while he was taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Since when do people just come in and murder others, without even entering court? A democracy that entertains the notion of assassination of civilians abroad has fundamental problems.

Now, I love my country, Australia. I love some other countries—like Britain, from which our Australian nation sprang. I love America; I sincerely love America, which gave us so much, thanks to freedom: freedom of thought, freedom of faith, freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech, freedom of interaction, freedom of exchange, freedom of travel and movement, freedom of initiative, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom to defend oneself. I've lived, studied, and worked in America. My wife is an American, a dual American-Australian citizen. Our two adult children are dual Australian-American citizens. I've travelled to all 50 American states. I love the American people. They are truly caring people, generous people.

In the past, America as a nation was much admired. Worldwide, it was admired. At the end of the First World War, America was in a position to dominate the world. And what did it do? It withdrew back to its shores—an admirable precedent. Contrast that with America since 1944 and the globalist takeover of America. America became a ruthless imperialist power. In the past 80 years, globalists exploited their control over America and corrupted its government. America strode the world stage, overthrowing governments and starting wars that fed its massive military-industrial complex. As a proud friend of America, we need to question what it does and stop blindly following America into wars. We need to support the wonderful, generous, caring American people. Now, as a result of American imperialism and aggression, the world is changing. BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—is growing, and undermining the American dollar. America faces karma. Australia must be careful because of this and ask questions of our American friend.

Julian Assange exposed some of the inhuman dark side of the globalists hijacking and driving America. I wish to pay tribute to Julian Assange for standing up for truth and for freedom of speech, for exposing our country's friend, America, and its tilt away from civil democratic governments to unaccountable governments that drone American citizens without a court verdict, that drone people overseas without a court verdict—without even a prosecution, without even a case. It's appropriate that Julian can now have his family beside him and have the freedom he is entitled to enjoy.

Since being elected a senator I've supported the push for Julian to come home, and I congratulate Senator Shoebridge for his constant, unfailing efforts in marshalling support to bring Julian home. Well done to all involved for your efforts. Thank you for your efforts. We need to expand protections for whistleblowers to restore democracy in our country. That's right: I said 'restore democracy in our country'—and restore democracy in our allies, restore democracy globally. Democracy is fragile. It's beautiful, but it's fragile. To restore and protect democracy, every citizen must do one thing: speak.