Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

What is not true? Are you questioning that the cattle numbers are down 23 per cent? Are you questioning that? Go and have an argument with the ABS, because they're not my figures—they're the Australian Bureau of Statistics' figures. Dairying is down 15 per cent, sugarcane is down over 15 per cent and, biggest of all, the wool herd is down 72 per cent. You say it's not right—well, tell me what's not right about it! I'd like to know what's right. If it's not right, take it up with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, not me.

Electricity, under the much-maligned Bjelke-Petersen government, was $674. That's what you paid. For two or three years after Labor took over, they left everything in place, and then they introduced free-market policies. The price had been $674—I speak with authority, because I was the minister—and there was no justification for increasing the electricity price by one dollar. All the power stations were paid off, we had plenty of reserve up our sleeve, we didn't need any new power stations. But when we went to the free market under the incoming Labor government—

The ex-leader of the opposition—this might be one of the reasons he's 'ex'—is laughing! He thinks it's funny! When they went to free-marketing in electricity, the price went from $674, where it had been for 11 years, straight through the roof up to over 2½ thousand dollars. And now, with the Greenie's implementation, it's gone up over $3,000 for a householder. Who's to blame? The ALP government in Queensland is to blame, undoubtedly. They've been there for most of the last 30 years.

In all probability, I will support this legislation because I know the enormous cost-of-living rise that ordinary people have had to sustain. But I will most certainly be aggressively supporting the efforts by the crossbench to eliminate small business from the ambit of this legislation. I will most certainly be strongly supporting those moves. I would take them myself, but other people have taken them and I will support them.

Honestly, the modern power station will be an algae power station with zero emissions, and I pay tribute to Minister Plibersek that she knows the name of the algae that you use. So CO2 will not be an emission and it will not be a pollutant; it will be a product. We want to produce as much CO2 as we can possibly reduce and put it into algae ponds. You can't do this everywhere, but you can do it in North Queensland; we've got a lot of flat country and a hell of a lot of water. That's the modern future, and we can produce electricity out of that for around about $27 a megawatt hour. Currently I don't think you're going to get electricity for much under $100 a megawatt hour anywhere in Australia. But because you're making more money out of the algae, which— (Time expired)

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