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

I describe myself not as a sceptic but as an ‘anti’. When I say that, I do not say it lightly. I would like to think that every decision I make and position I espouse in this place is backed up by very extensive research—and I will go into that in a moment. I have tried to find a formula of words. If you were to cover your house with chicken wire and then say, ‘My house will now be warm in winter,’ or, ‘It will be cool in summer,’ how ridiculous that would be. Do you think chicken wire is going to make any difference to the heat of your house? Of course it is not. And that is 400 parts per million. You do not have to be a genius here to figure out that that is the equivalent of putting chicken wire over your house. I do not care if I am the only person in the place saying this—it would not be the first time—but I know who is going to be proved accurate in the long run.

The leading proponent of global warming—the leading scientist—in Great Britain let the cat out of the bag when his papers got into the public arena. He said that it was a shame that an Australian died because he was one of the few people who was working on proving the link between global warming and CO2. Even if you say that the world is warming—and the jury is probably out on that too—then you have to prove why. As I have said previously in this place, if a photon is being reflected from the surface of the earth, the idea that it is going to hit one of those 400 parts per million and bounce back to earth is fairly extraordinary. I have thrown a lot of stones in my time—literally, not metaphorically—and I have never noticed one of them coming back to me. If you throw them at a rock or a tree they will be deflected, but they will be deflected forward not backwards. On the odd occasion they might come back but that would be very rare indeed. There is a deflection but it goes in the same direction.

Obviously I am oversimplifying. When I come to this place I do not want to be saying things that are not fully and substantially researched. There is a problem that arises in the oceans—and I pay great tribute to Dr Katharina Fabricius, at the Institute of Marine Science, which is one of very few intellectual institutions in Australia that has maintained its integrity. I wish I could say the same thing about CSIRO. It has been a great tragedy for Australia that that organisation has impugned its intellectual integrity on a number of occasions now. The Institute of Marine Science, very much to its credit, has maintained—to quote one of the leading scientists in this field, Katharina Fabricius—that, if we put large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, it will be absorbed into the ocean proportionately. This tends to make the ocean acidic, which tends to create problems for calcium carbonate—that is, for bivalves, which are probably the lowest on the food chain in the oceans.

So there is a much more serious problem that can arise, a much more immediate problem. I am not saying that the problem is there at the present moment. They carried out tests on about 24 creatures of the sea, bubbled CO2 through the salt water and found that about 21 of them decreased their growth and three increased their growth. I thought: ‘Yes, they’ve proved their point scientifically. This is not like global warming; this is something that has very hard science behind it.’ A person such as me who is not a sceptic but an ‘anti’ can say, ‘Yes, I think we should take a bit of a pull on the reins here.’

Having said that, the coalition has come forward—and I praise the Leader of the Opposition for his phrase ‘direct action’. He said, ‘We’re into direct action; we’re going to do physical things that will answer this call.’ Wilson Tuckey has said that on many occasions in this place and has been eminently sensible in this area.

The honourable member for Leichhardt is here, and he will back me up when I say that in Northern Australia we are wonderfully endowed with water. We are wonderfully endowed with sunshine. We can provide renewable energy to you in spades. Having praised the Leader of the Opposition for his movement towards direct action rather than the macro approach being advocated by the government, I say that, in sharp contrast, it is the government that has gone into the specifics and has gone a long way to delivering. In this case the cheque has not been in the mail; we have got a lot of commitment but we have not seen the colour of the government’s money yet.

We praise the honourable Minister for Resources and Energy, Mr Ferguson, for the wonderful work that he has done in advocating the connection of the Pilbara and Olympic Dam. But it is vitally important that in the richest mineral province on earth, the north-west mineral province, which has 500 million tonnes of iron ore, none of it has been touched at all, and we have not even looked for it—but we know there are 500 million tonnes out there.

It has four per cent of the world’s known uranium reserves—none of it touched; it is completely untapped. The biggest vanadium reserves in the world are at Julia Creek. It, of course, is famous because it is the biggest copper, silver, lead and zinc province on Earth, with some of the biggest mines on Earth, such as Mount Isa, operating in the area. Cannington was for a long time the most profitable mine in the stable of BHP, the biggest mining company in the world. It was the most profitable mine and—please, God—when they double production it will be again. So this is the richest mineral province on Earth. We have 24 phosphate deposits in the world; four of the 24 are in north-west Queensland. Only one of those has been touched.

To tap that wonderful resource we need energy. We need cheap power. I have to say this in harsh judgment upon the government. Please, Mr Government of Australia—and Mr Opposition of Australia, because the other side has been just as bad when they have been in government—understand that all you sell to the rest of the world is coal, aluminium and, to a lesser extent, iron ore. Coal and aluminium comprise over 30 per cent of what you sell to the rest of the world. All of Australia’s production put together does not amount to coal and aluminium. And what is aluminium? Aluminium is congealed electricity. Where does electricity come from? Electricity comes from coal. And if you say that electricity should not come from coal, God help you, because you will not have an aluminium industry.

Let me be very specific. I was minister for mines and energy in Queensland—and, if I say so myself, a very successful one. In fact, my department won the science prize for Australia for our solar energy in the Torres Straits. It was overturned by an incoming socialist government, I might add, but we will leave that out of the way!

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