Malcolm Ieuan Roberts (born 3 May 1955) is an Indian-born Australian far-right politician who has been a senator for Queensland since 2019 as a member of One Nation. He was previously a senator from 2016 to 2017.
Roberts studied engineering at the University of Queensland. He was a mining engineer before entering politics, working in the coal industry including as general manager of the Gordonstone coal mine in central Queensland. Roberts was elected to the Senate at the 2016 federal election, running second in One Nation's ticket in Queensland behind party leader Pauline Hanson. In 2017, during the Australian parliamentary eligibility crisis, he was disqualified from parliament for holding British citizenship by descent in breach of section 44 of the constitution. He was re-elected to the Senate at the 2019 election as One Nation's lead candidate in Queensland.
Roberts is known for his climate change denial, and has been a proponent of various far-right fringe conspiracy theories. Prior to his election to the Senate he founded the Galileo Movement to lobby against the Gillard government's carbon pricing legislation. He has also been associated with anti-globalism and opposition to the United Nations.
Early life and education Roberts was born on 3 May 1955 in Disergarh, West Bengal, India. He is the son of Ieuan Roberts, a Welsh coal miner, later a coal mine manager and then Queensland's chief inspector of mines, and Ethel Jago, from rural Queensland. His childhood home in India employed Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu servants. As a child, Roberts built a miniature coal mine in the yard of his home. Roberts and his family moved to Australia in 1962, as his father was recruited to manage a mine in Hunter Valley, New South Wales. Roberts stated he does not remember his childhood in India.
Roberts graduated from the University of Queensland with Bachelor of Engineering (Honours). He also has an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. An Australian court found that Roberts had wrongly sought a $30,000 tax deduction for the costs of the MBA spent between 1988 and 1990.
Career In 1977, Roberts began work as a coal miner. During this time, until 1979, he worked in this role at five different mines across Australia before becoming a mining engineer. Thereafter, he worked as an engineer and general manager for companies such as Peabody Coal Company, Consolidation Coal Company and Atlantic Richfield, though he had not held paid employment for eight years prior to his election in 2016.
Coal mining
From 1982 to 1988, Roberts worked as a manager for Coal & Allied at West Wallsend. The mine proved to be unprofitable due to its location, leading to its sale in 1988, at which time Roberts took a redundancy package. After completing an MBA, Roberts was appointed general manager at the Gordonstone coal mine in Queensland, the largest underground mine in Australia. Roberts left the role three years later. According to Roberts, he resigned due to a lack of support during an industrial dispute, but others have suggested that he was let go after cost overruns at the mine.
With his wife, in 1994 he established a management consultancy, Catalyst For Corporate Performance, and became involved in Eastern and alternative self-help techniques including meditation.
Volunteer work Roberts served as chairman of the board of the Brisbane Montessori School from 1999 until 2003 and served voluntarily on the advisory board (as a parent representative member) of the International Montessori Council from 2000 until 2008. Timothy Seldin, chairman of the Montessori Foundation, stated that Roberts' views "are not representative of Dr Montessori's global vision, and do not reflect the views of the Montessori Foundation or the International Montessori Council".
Earlier climate-change denial activities From 2006 until his election to the Senate, Roberts was a full-time political activist, speaking at rallies against the Labor Government's carbon tax. He sent hundreds of emails to political, scientific and media figures on the topic. He met politicians, had universities launch academic inquiries into climate scientists and sent legal letters demanding the resignation of government ministers.
He is the leader of the Galileo Movement, established in 2011. A 2011 Scientific American article on the group stated that it "recycles many of the same straw man arguments and distortions about the science that other groups have previously employed".
Senate Roberts was elected to the Senate at the 2016 Australian federal election, running in second place on One Nation's ticket in Queensland, behind party leader Pauline Hanson. However, he was subsequently found to be ineligible for election. He received 77 first-preference votes in that election, the lowest number ever for a member of the federal parliament.
Senate eligibility and disqualification
Following the 2017 resignations of Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters due to dual citizenship and Matt Canavan's resignation from the Cabinet for similar reasons, Roberts' place of birth and citizenship was scrutinised by the media. Roberts released a statutory declaration to the effect that he is only an Australian citizen, despite birth records showing that he had previously been identified as a British national. A spokesperson for Roberts stated that Roberts was "choosing to believe that he was never British". Doubts persisted about the status of Roberts' Indian citizenship after it was argued in the media that under a precedent set by the Supreme Court of India, he continued to be a 'presumed citizen' of the country.
On 9 August 2017, the Senate referred his position to the High Court as Court of Disputed Returns. The reference was moved by his party leader Pauline Hanson, with his support. On 22 September 2017, the High Court of Australia found that Roberts was a citizen of the United Kingdom, through descent from his Welsh father, when he was elected at the 2016 federal election. His suitability for retaining his Senate seat depended on whether he had taken appropriate steps to renounce his British citizenship prior to his nomination. Between August and October 2017, Roberts stated several contradictory positions regarding his citizenship, including that he had "absolute conviction" of being an Australian upon nomination, that he had emailed British authorities on 1 May 2016, first requesting to renounce his citizenship, and upon receiving no reply for a month, sent a subsequent email on 6 June (three days after his nomination) stating, "As there was no reply to my email last month (see below) and although I am confident I am not a British citizen, with this email I renounce any British citizenship should it exist." It was subsequently revealed that the email domains that Roberts had contacted were defunct and no longer in use. Roberts sent a formal application to renounce his United Kingdom citizenship on 2 November 2016, and his renouncement became official on 5 December 2016.
A final decision regarding Roberts's senatorial eligibility was scheduled to be heard by the High Court, as the Court of Disputed Returns, between 10 and 12 October 2017. However, the Court delegated the fact-finding task to a single judge, Justice Keane, before whom Roberts appeared on 21 September and who reported his findings on the following day.
Following Roberts's birth in India, the UK High Commission registered his birth as a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, and the Australian Trade Commissioner made an entry in his mother's passport that he "is the child of an Australian citizen but has not acquired Australian citizenship". The British nationality experts' opinion was that Roberts became a British citizen at birth (whether registered or not), and ceased to be a British citizen on 5 December 2016 when his renunciation was registered. Keane J found that Roberts knew he did not become an Australian citizen until May 1974 and that, when he nominated for the Senate, he knew there was a possibility that he might have been, and remained, a citizen of the United Kingdom. Keane J found that his actions before nomination had been ineffectual to renounce his UK citizenship, which had been belatedly renounced on 5 December 2016.
On 27 October 2017, the full High Court, as the Court of Disputed Returns, ruled that Roberts had been ineligible to be elected to the Parliament. Roberts and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson subsequently announced that Roberts would nominate as a candidate for the electoral district of Ipswich at the 2017 Queensland state election. He was not elected. In February 2018, it was announced that Roberts would lead the One Nation Senate ticket in Queensland at the 2019 Australian federal election. Pauline Hanson said: "Malcolm Roberts has got the reputation as a powerhouse, the empirical science man, and he's really taken it up to members of parliament".
In September 2017, before the High Court ruling on Roberts's eligibility, blogger Tony Magrathea initiated a High Court action alleging that Roberts had sat in the Senate while disqualified, contrary to the Common Informers (Parliamentary Disqualifications) Act 1975. On 24 June 2019, the High Court found the allegation proved and ordered Roberts to pay a penalty of $6,000 to Magrathea.
Re-election With his citizenship clear, Roberts was elected to the Senate again in 2019.
Roberts was re-elected to the Senate in 2025.
Political positions and controversies Roberts has "long espoused various conspiracy theories" and his statements and attendance at fringe events have come under public scrutiny.
COVID vaccines Roberts has been accused of spreading misinformation about Covid and vaccines against the virus. Before the 2022 federal election he falsely claimed that Covid vaccines greatly increased rates of miscarriages amongst pregnant women He has also falsely claimed that the COVID-19 vaccines were bioweapons to control the world and were developed by the US military. and that images of deaths from Covid in Italy and China were ‘staged.’
Sovereign citizen movement Roberts has frequently used a style of writing and terminology linked to the sovereign citizen movement. This movement sees governments as illegitimate and attempts to assert the rights of individuals to ignore laws and taxes. Members of this movement aspire to exist outside both the social and legal bounds of society, and use colons and hyphens to evade what they claim is government enslavement via grammar.
In 2011, Roberts wrote an affidavit to then Prime Minister Julia Gillard – addressing her as "The Woman, Julia-Eileen: Gillard., acting as The Honourable JULIA EILEEN GILLARD" — demanding that she sign a contract exempting him from paying the carbon tax and compensation of up to $280,000 if she didn't provide him with disclosure on 28 points, including evidence that "the Commonwealth of Australia CIK# 000805157 is not a corporation registered on the United States of America securities exchange". Roberts signed himself as "Malcolm-Ieuan: Roberts., the living soul". He has used this form of sovereign citizen address since, in a list of acknowledgements he wrote in 2013. Roberts is a prolific letter writer. He writes to politicians, government agencies, universities and scientists. The topic of these letters is mostly formal complaints regarding allegations of corruption in climate science. He keeps an archive of his letters and replies at his website.
Roberts stated in 2016 that he did not identify as a "sovereign citizen".
Climate change Roberts promotes climate conspiracy theories, and does not accept the scientific consensus on climate change.
His views were supported by Alan Jones, who is the patron of the Galileo Movement and interviewed Roberts on his breakfast program.
Roberts is a member of the Saltbush Club, a group that promotes climate change denial.