Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It was with some interest that I actually read what this is about. It says: including utility scale solar plants, a task made more urgent given the World Bank predictions that we may be on the path to a four degree Celsius warmer world economy by the end of the century. I was startled by that. So I thought I had better go have a read of it. I have it. The trouble that we have got with this, of course, is that they did not say that, so I am going to read to you exactly what they did say:

This work is a product of the staff of The World Bank with external contributions. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors or the governments they represent.

The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work.

So we have a whole MPI based on a fallacy, but that is not unusual. It is not unusual that they create a cluster before even starting. Everything is fear and loathing and guilt and climate policy.

I got the transcript of Tony Jones speaking to Peter Garrett. Tony Jones said as regards another report:

The most scary thing it says is the upper level of those rises in global sea levels could be as much as six metres—six metres—by the end of the century.

Peter Garrett's response was:

Look, I haven't seen that report yet, Tony, but I don't think there is any doubt about those kinds of projections …

I wonder why we don't not take these people seriously. I feel like getting a case of beer and going to the Coolum surf life saving club and just waiting for the surf to come in and never go out again. It just does not stop. There are always reports.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri has said that by 2035 all the glaciers in the Himalayas would be melted. The problem is that they are still there. Everything is going along as per normal. We have just one after the other after the other. What can we say about Tim Flannery? This guy is incredible. He has said now we need to remove the obstacles:

Although we're getting say a 20 percent decrease in rainfall in some areas of Australia, that's translating to a 60 percent decrease in the run-off into dams and rivers. That's because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and our river systems.

Dr Flannery said that the storages in South-East Queensland would never fill again. Since he said that that I went and checked the other day at Bundaberg and down to the Gold Coast. The storages are full, there is no doubt about it. They have been full ever since he said it. Why? It was another thing just to terrify the kids. And on and on and on it goes.

They want to go to renewables. Some actually were going to wind farms. So then I went and had a look at the co-founder of Greenpeace, Dr Patrick Moore. He said that the wind farm industry is a destroyer of wealth and negative to the economy. He said:

I'm happy for the farmers who are receiving the royalties for allowing the wind towers to be built on their farms …. They deserve it, but the cost to the consumers will continue to climb—partly because of the rate increases and partly due to tax increases… They are ridiculously expensive and don't work half the time … No matter how many are built, they won't not replace coal, gas or hydro or nuclear plants, because they are continuous and wind is not always reliable.

What is this insane lemming-like desire to go to renewables going to do to our economy? We have a few problems. I am looking forward to the campaign where we say wherever you put in a Labor, Green or Independent candidate, there you will get wind farms. They always ran the scare campaign with us about nuclear power plants. That was a myth but this is the truth. You get wind farms in your backyard. This is the party of wind farms. There is a wind farm coming next to you because people just love wind farms. They cannot wait for the Labor Party and the Greens to be putting wind farms in every corner of the world.

They want renewables. Why don't they talk about hydro? No, they do not like dams. Dams are evil, wind farms are good. What about solar? Just lately we had a Dr Roger Pielke who said that for us to get even our five per cent target we would need 30,000 solar farms equivalent to one that they were going to build at Cloncurry. These things are just not going to happen. So, where else do they go? You could go to nuclear but they hate nuclear. That is another thing they hate. They cannot have that, even though there are zero emissions. Where do we go? Where do these people lead us? If we let them go we will not have a manufacturing industry in this nation. We will not have an economy in this nation. Christine Milne has said that she wants us to go to 100 per cent renewables—100 per cent. This is absolute lunacy but this is the policy of the government. It goes hand in glove with the carbon tax.

I do not know: I had an examination of the climate over Christmas because the carbon tax is in now. Everything should be better. But the climate is around about where we left it. We had a few problems over at the lake. I thought the carbon tax would have fixed that, so what is the purpose of us all being ripped off by this basically gross encumbrance on the cost of living of every Australian family? What has happened? Isn't it all supposed to be better now, because you have your carbon tax? Isn't it all supposed to be wondrous? Of course not, because there is no way on earth that this is going to have any effect on the climate. It is most definitely having an effect on the standard of living of people. It is most definitely making people poorer and driving our manufacturing industry out of business but it is doing nothing for our economy. (Time expired)