Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Net Zero Economy Authority Bill 2024. I look at this through the lens of: what will this bill do for my electorate of Dawson? The answer is net zero. This bill is turning the Net Zero Economy Agency into a standalone statutory authority. By doing so, the Albanese Labor government are wasting $1.1 billion. They are wasting $1.1 billion of taxpayers' money on duplicating something that already exists. This comes hot on the heels of the recent budget, where 36,000 more bureaucrats are going to be employed at a cost of over $24 billion over the forward estimates. Unbelievable. How much more do you think the taxpayers of Australia can pay? There are already federal and state entities who exist and largely mirror the responsibilities of what would become the Net Zero Economy Authority, and—classic Labor—this bill has net zero details of how they plan to deal with how the overlapping organisations will or should work together. This is all about the reckless race-to-renewables fantasy of those opposite. It's about fast-tracking the swindle factories—you know, the big whoosh-whoosh fans that wipe out heaps of birds, bang, when the birds hit the blades. Of course fast-tracking the solar projects as well—

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