Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, imagine the entire roof above us here as an illuminating light. If we put four of these clocks up on the roof and said, ‘No light will illuminate this room because we have put those four clocks up there,’ that would be like what we are saying about global warming. We are saying that the equivalent of one square metre in an area of over 2½ thousand square metres is going to warm up the world because the rays will not be able to bounce back up again. The proposition is ridiculous—it really is.

I am not a sceptic; I am an ‘anti’. Don’t call me a sceptic—I am an anti. But, having said that, even an anti like me says: ‘Well, there is a huge rate of increase here. We should pull back a bit.’ If you want to go to one of the half-a-dozen leading authorities in the world, go to Katharina Fabricius at the Australian Institute of Marine Science—and it sure would be nice if someone in this place ever did any scientific research, because there has not been one single neuron of scientific contribution in any of the debate up to date, and I have been listening to all the speeches. Please, fellas, just do a little bit of science and think about it: four clocks on this huge roof are going to stop the room from illuminating! That is your proposition. It is a ridiculous proposition. But there is a huge increase, so even an anti—not a sceptic, but an anti like me—says we should take a bit of a pull on the reins. I am going to wheel a breaker here and the horse should be going at a gallop, but I am saying: ‘No, I might get killed if it goes at a gallop. We should pull back a bit here.’

If you go to Katharina Fabricius, one of the world’s leading authorities at the Institute of Marine Science—one of the four leading institutes of marine science in the world at Townsville in North Queensland—she will tell you about carbon dioxide going into the water. You will get some sort of idea if you listen to speeches here that the sun’s rays go through and kill the reef. I am sorry—that is not the danger here. The danger here comes from carbon going into the water and forming a very mild carbolic acid. Sea water is in fact alkaline and the seashells and even the little plankton have shells, and they are mainly calcium carbonate, which, for those of you who know your chemistry, is alkaline—a base. If you acidify the water, it becomes difficult for the plankton to form their shells, and they do not. There is a diminution in the bottom of the food chain in the oceans. So there is a situation in the oceans which scientific analysis will tell you creates a problem. So even an anti like me says, ‘Yes, there is some reason why we should have a look at this.’ We should not go crazy mad like we are doing at the present moment, wiping out jobs all over Australia.

I have got to agree, very strongly, with the Leader of the Opposition on this when he says that all of our industries will be put at the gravest disadvantage. Do you want all of your industries to start on a handicap? They are handicapped now because all the other countries have tariffs and subsidies. In agriculture, the average subsidy tariff level is 49 per cent. The figure in Australia is four per cent. They are the OECD figures, not mine. It is much worse in manufacturing. Does Barack Obama worry about WTO rules on free trade when he says all steel from now on will be American steel in every single government job? Does he worry about that when he gives $43,000 million dollars to the American company GMH? Does he worry about that? No. These are all subsidies. But we do not do that in Australia; we go in the opposite direction. We place a handicap on all of our industries.

A very serious a problem arises in the mining fields. I represent the biggest mining province in the world, the north-west mineral province, which produces pretty close to $15,000 million a year of product. We have already lost 2,000 jobs. We need our unions to come forward on this because it is their members that are taking the knock. I am not going to nominate the mines because I do not want to scare the horses, the banks and everyone else but there is not a single person living in north-west Queensland who does not know that there will be another 2,000 jobs to go and there will be another four or five mines that will close if you put this cost imposition upon them.

I pay very great tribute to the member for Batman, the Minister for Resources and Energy, who is in the House, because he has acted to deliver to us a reduction in our cost of production and we are very appreciative. In the budget, it says that we will have a true national grid and that the north-west mineral province and the Pilbara will be brought onto the national grid. Minister, we must say a very sincere thank you on behalf of the people of Australia, not just the people of my electorate, because, if we do not get that, there will be another 2,000 jobs gone. But if we do get that and we do not have this imposition upon us, I think that, even in the current climate, we will create another 2,000 jobs. Mr Gutnick’s phosphate mine at Lady Annie, I am sure, will go ahead. He has said publicly on many occasions that, regardless of the financial crisis—of course the Indian government is heavily involved here, God bless them—he will go ahead with the project that will be worth somewhere between $1,500 million and $3,500 million dollars a year to the Australian people.

If we have that transmission line running as the minister has got in the budget—and we thank him most sincerely as this is truly something that is significant that the government has done—and that electricity is carried out to that north-west corner where our electricity is costing us an absolute fortune and where in two years time we will not have the enough to supply demand out there—and the minister may tune in here. Minister, could you tune in here. I know Mr Billson is a very intelligent person but—

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