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

They go as far as the eye can see—again, enormous environmental damage, wiping out G-qual, good quality agricultural land that provides the food and fibre for the whole nation. They feed the nation out of the good quality agricultural land, but no, we decide to put solar panels there. What about the native vegetation? The native vegetation is being wiped out. Whole hilltops, straight across, are being wiped out to put swindle factories up in the top area of those.

Where are the Greens on this? Their silence is absolutely deafening. I thought they were keen to look after the environment, but no. If this were a coalmine or a grazier who was trying to knock a tree down so he could have some grass to feed his stock, he'd be in jail. No, because it's this reckless race-to-renewables, that's okay. Do whatever you like. You get a free pass. As everyone knows here, I'm a farmer by trade, so I want to talk about a little thing called photosynthesis. What happens with photosynthesis is it takes the carbon dioxide out of the air, through the process of photosynthesis, and turns it into oxygen. What do those opposite want to do? Fill all of the paddocks full of steel—which, by the way, has to be made by mining as well, but everyone seems to forget about that. I just don't get it. Again, the Greens, through all of this process, are absolutely silent. This is all just to create intermittent, unreliable power, and that's exactly what it is. It doesn't work all the time.

To illustrate this I'll tell a little story which best sums it up the 'intermittent and unreliable'. Four blokes go into a bar, and they order four schooners. The barman comes over: 'What do you want, fellas?' 'Four schooners.' 'Sorry, mate. No beer today, because the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing.' This is the analogy. This is the direct comparison. These four blokes go home, tails between their legs, thinking about Slim Dusty's pub with no beer, but not to be outdone, they front up again the next day. 'We're going to the pub, boys. You beauty.' They go and see the barman: 'Four schooners, please. You've got beer today?' 'We've got beer today.' Beauty. He brings the first two schooners over, disappears and comes back: 'We need another two.' 'Sorry, mate. The wind's not blowing. You can only have two schooners.' What do we do about that? I know in the electricity world we have to load-shed. We have to share. We have blackouts; we have brownouts. That's exactly what happens. Not to be outdone, day 3 comes along and the four blokes are still keen. They want to have a round together. They want to have four beers. They come in: 'Four schooners, please. We've got beer, don't we?' 'We've got beer today.' They pour the first two straight across, and they get another one. The fourth bloke is waiting for his beer. Where is it? 'Sorry, mate. A cloud has gone over. We can't provide you with a beer.' That is a direct analogy of exactly what happens when you've got an intermittent and unreliable electricity supply. It beggars belief. What if you went to the bakery and they only sold you bread when it suited them? It should be beholden on whatever the energy creator is to be able to provide power 24/7.

The Albanese Labor government is intermittent and unreliable as well, so this doesn't surprise me at all. What has the Albanese Labor government done to help the Labor created cost-of-living crisis? Net zero. What have they done to alleviate the pressures of the housing crisis? You guessed it: net zero. What have they done to curb inflation? Net zero. What have they done to stop interest rates rising? Net zero. What have they done to bring down the rising cost of energy? Net zero.

So let's explore the capex of this. We hear from Minister Bowen about how renewables are the cheapest form of energy. Well, let's look at the cheapest form of energy. When you look at a solar panel, you only look at what it produces in the middle of the day, not how much it produces overnight or when clouds go over. Say you buy the solar panels. At best, they only last 20 years. Some of them last 15 to 20 years. So what are you going to do with the solar panels? You'll have to store them somewhere or put them in landfill because you can't recycle them. That cost of landfill, with all the leachate and all the monitoring, is therefore ever. And then you've got to do it again.

Let's look at the capex. Because solar panels only work seven or eight hours a day at the most and we need power 24/7, they have to be supplemented with something. So here comes wind. You've already have paid for your solar panels and then you've got to put a wind tower up. Let's also overlook the cost at the end of the life of the wind tower. It costs $600,000 to dismantle a wind tower. That's the cost at the end, but you've got to buy them upfront. Again, the wind tower only works when the wind's blowing. It doesn't work when there's not much wind, and it doesn't work when there's too much wind. So that capex is expended.

Then I hear, 'Okay, we need hydro to supplement this as well.' You've got to pay that capital expenditure as well. So you pay for all the dams, and all this stuff also has to be connected by a transmission network. Those opposite are saying, 'Okay. We need 28,000 kilometres of poles and wires to get all this connected up.' I'll go back to the hydro. We've got the hydro, which can't provide it all the time either. Then I hear about batteries, but batteries just do not last long enough. Renewables are not baseload; you need baseload power.

Currently, the only baseload power that we have in this country is coal, which those opposite want to shut down as quickly as possible. They're too frightened to use more gas, but that is good for baseload as well. But if you really want net emission technologies, you need to go nuclear. Nuclear will provide next to no emissions technologies and will provide power 24/7, not like those opposite, who only want to provide power when it suits them.

I want to have reliable and affordable energy 24/7. I don't want to go up and see Mrs Smith, who is lying in the hospital bed on a ventilator and say: 'Excuse me, Mrs Smith. I just need you to hold your breath for the next 14 hours until the sun comes up or the wind blows so we can get a little bit more power into the grid. Just hang on there for me, love.' I don't want to do that. I live in the real world; I don't live in some ideological fantasyland. I live in the real world and I want to look after the real people.

In my maiden speech, I spoke about how we need to look at all energy mixes. I'm happy enough to use solar panels. Through the middle of the day, in offices, that's absolutely a fantastic idea. But what about the placement of the solar panels? Why don't we put the solar panels on rooftops or on top of Woolworths or Coles or—

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