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

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I want to speak on a fundamental for human progress: freedom and freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is enshrined in our country after many High Court rulings. It's not specifically covered in our Constitution, yet it's implied, and because of the High Court's rulings it is enshrined in our country. Yet today freedom of speech is under threat, and it is under threat in this parliament. In fact, our whole way of life is under threat. Listen to these wise words from African American economist and philosopher Thomas Sowell, who says:

We are living in an era when sanity is controversial and insanity is just another viewpoint—and degeneracy only another lifestyle.

and this:

Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?

Take the case of All Lives Matter. Surely there wouldn't be anyone in Australia who would disagree that all lives matter, yet in just four days we have witnessed the following events. Labor Senator Helen Polley tweeted the words 'all lives matter' last Tuesday and was eaten alive by her own party. She retracted the tweet. Senator Pauline Hanson stated in her matter of public importance speech that we need and she wants all people to be equal under the law, yet Greens Senators Rice and McKim and Labor Senator Ayres implied or stated that Senator Hanson is racist and that I am racist. Senator McKim said it before I even started my speech. Their statements and implied statements are false. They are lies, and lies are a form of control. People lie when they lack a coherent argument and cannot counter our argument, so they resort to personal attacks and lies. Liberal speakers during the debate on Senator Hanson's matter of public importance said many times that all lives matter. Senator Hanson tried to move a motion the next day that all lives matter. The government and Labor stopped Senator Hanson. All senators in this chamber except for me and Senator Hanson disagreed, it seems, that all lives matter. So the people leading this country don't think that all lives matter.

The next day, the fourth day, I tried to present data showing the data on deaths in custody, and the government stopped me presenting their own data. Notice that I said 'deaths in custody', not 'black deaths in custody', not 'Aboriginal deaths in custody'—'deaths in custody', and it came in this report from the Australian government's own Australian Institute of Criminology. It's the 2020 report entitled Deaths in custody in Australia, written by Laura Doherty and Samantha Bricknell. I'll go through the data from it. In 2017-18 the rate of death in custody for prisoner types was for Indigenous persons 0.14 per 100 prisoners and for non-Indigenous prisoners 0.18 per 100 prisoners. Non-Indigenous appears to be 25 per cent higher, yet I tell the truth and I do not mislead. This would not be a statistically significant difference, as the sample numbers are so small, so we can say without any doubt that non-Indigenous and Indigenous persons die in custody at roughly the same rate. The 2017-18 number of total deaths in police custody and custody related operations was three for Indigenous people and 14 for non-Indigenous people. In 2017-18, 79 per cent of Indigenous deaths in prison custody were due to natural causes. Four-fifths of deaths in custody were due to natural causes. Over the decade to 2018, non-Indigenous persons were nearly twice as likely as Indigenous persons to hang themselves in prison custody. Motor vehicle pursuits represented 38 per cent of Indigenous deaths in police custody and custody related operations—almost four in 10—driving the vehicle themselves.

From 2006 to 2016, a 41 per cent increase in Indigenous imprisonment rates corresponded almost exactly with a 42 per cent increase in people identifying as Indigenous. In other words, the rate of Indigenous deaths in custody stayed the same in proportion and did not increase. Using the figure of 437 unconvicted Indigenous deaths without reference to critical detail and context results in a distorted discussion of Indigenous issues. When real issues remain hidden, they cannot be solved. That leads to proposed solutions being not useful and possibly harmful. The issue is not unequal treatment before the law. The real issue for Aboriginal people may be lifestyle or cultural or poverty or welfare dependency. But let's have the truth, because only then can we identify core problems and only then can we identify core solutions. Only then can we really care for the disadvantaged and help them solve the challenges they face. But all people must be equal before the law.

Another real issue is dishonesty in parliament and fear of data. Data is what brings objectivity, yet the people in this parliament run from it—their own data. So I want to make these core points. Firstly, these are hard data from the government's own agency, yet the government is jumping at its own shadow, afraid to debate the data even though the points are supportive of its case. That begs the question: is the government afraid of a split within its own ranks—the wokes versus the real Liberals?' Several Liberals have approached me and discussed their party's fear of data and reality.

Secondly, the Left, or the control side of politics, hates data. It undermines their use of opinion, hearsay, smears, emotions, propaganda and lies to hijack issues. That fabricates victims and that weakens the very people they claim to be helping. Their ideology is based on victimhood as a means of creating division and separation. And that cripples people.

Thirdly, the government's position in suppressing the data shows a fear of data, a disdain for data, a disrespect for people. It highlights how issues are pushed to avoid data. As for climate, former senator Ian Macdonald stood up in here on the last Monday of 2016 and looked across at me and said, 'I don't always agree with Senator Roberts, but I've got to admit and respect him for starting the debate on climate science that we have never had in this parliament,' and still have not had. The absence of data allows destructive policies that are hurting and killing people, and certainly making life miserable financially, materially and emotionally.

With the exception of Senator Hanson and me, all other senators have effectively voted that all lives do not matter. All other senators have effectively voted that they are not interested in data, not interested in objectivity and not interested in truth. I stand by my belief and statement, and that is this: all lives matter. I will continue to support free speech as crucial to democracy and freedom, and that is essential for human progress.