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

If I may, I would like to start with two questions of you, Mr Acting Deputy President: what is today's date, and is it 1 April? Before going on to answer those rhetorical questions, I want to make some comment about Senator Back's comments. I genuinely, sincerely admire his contribution in the Senate and especially in Senate committees. But I would like to address some comments he made to the students in the gallery upstairs. While I agree that the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Simplifying Student Payments) Bill 2017 is necessary and I support it, please do not think that it is essential to go to a university to be a very effective and valuable contributor to our society. Assess whether a university is needed, because universities these days, sadly, are teaching people what to think, not how to think, and it is the 'how to think' that is really important.

I say that because I have an honours degree in engineering from one of the world's top universities, the University of Queensland, and I have an MBA from the University of Chicago, one of the world's very top finance and economics schools, and I won a prize there for my academic achievements. I am pleased I went there, but it is not for everyone. I am very disappointed at the standard of university education these days because, apart from the University of Chicago, where I did my MBA, very few schools are teaching people how to think. So please assess for your own mind. The other thing I say to you all is: do not look to parliament for solutions. The solutions come from within every one of us in this country. We are a country that is blessed with very talented people and—at the moment—free people.

The purpose of this bill—to get to the point—is that it tightens a few minor loopholes that allow some people to qualify for student payments despite possessing significant amounts of wealth. For example, holdings in trusts will now be considered as part of assets tests, and that is fair. Amendments are made to cause payments that vary depending on the remoteness of a student's location to take account of new data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics when it is relevant. This removes the need for future legislative tinkering in this area. That will add to efficiency. Income support recipients will be automatically issued health cards.

The net benefit of these measures will be a very small saving to the budget in the order of $13,000 per year—$13,000 per year. While we encourage the saving of even one cent, I wonder what the cost of senators and members debating this bill is. I will say it is much more than $13,000. We need to discuss these issues, but we also need to be mindful of costs. Has a cost-benefit analysis been done on this? Sadly, our taxpayer funds in our country rarely receive cost-benefit analysis in our federal parliament.

What about corporate tax that is being avoided by multinationals worth tens of billions of dollars a year? I had an interesting conversation with the Commissioner of Taxation on Friday. I asked him if he could advise me on the amount of tax that will be collected by modifications that are being proposed by the government. It took him 20 minutes to simply say that he could not. We have innovation programs being funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, and yet throughout history innovation has come from people with skin in the game—people who have something at stake.

Then we come to climate and energy. In his speech during the debate on the previous bill, Senator Sinodinos, in response to my comments on the lack of any specific empirical evidence, hard data or physical observations, said that we need a 'no regrets' decision. We must do something and, if there is no problem, we have done no damage. Yet in Australia climate policies are causing the waste of billions of dollars every year and are driving the destruction of the economy in South Australia, in Victoria, increasingly in our state, Queensland, in New South Wales and even in Western Australia if the new Labor government fulfils its commitments. Senator Sinodinos rightly raises the uncertainty that we have been told does not exist and he inadvertently confirms that he has no specific evidence for his government, the Labor Party, the Greens and Senator Xenophon punishing the Australian electorate with massive waste of billions of dollars. If he has any specific evidence proving that the human use of hydrocarbon energy is a detriment to our society, to our civilisation and to the natural environment that we feel is so precious, let him provide it. He never has. He was chief of staff for Prime Minister John Howard, who introduced the RET scheme that is destroying our states and our country, and manufacturing and even agriculture within our country. Prime Minister John Howard was the first leader of a major party to introduce an emissions trading scheme, and he also stole farmers' property rights, based upon something that Senator Sinodinos now implicitly admits has never been justified with specific evidence. If anyone has any specific evidence proving human cause, let's have it, because no-one has ever provided it.

I have challenged Professor Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland, my university, and John Cook, a subordinate to Professor Hoegh-Guldberg and climate communications fellow. I have challenged Professor Tim Flannery and Senator Larissa Waters three times, including in writing. I have challenged the ALP shadow minister, Mr Mark Butler, and yesterday the federally funded Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, after a two-hour meeting with me, withdrew from his previous acceptance of a challenge on my part to debate him on climate. He had accepted; yesterday he withdrew from that debate.