Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Cormann, I applaud Senator Xenophon's desire to protect his state by reducing electricity costs and looking at renewable energy and also his persistence now in seeking some protection for his state. However, I suggest that Senator Xenophon, instead of looking at you, needs to look to his left and look at the cause of the higher prices for electricity in South Australia, the Greens, and also the security implications there because of the destruction of the reliability of the electricity supply.

I can also empathise with Senator Cormann's dilemma. But perhaps, instead of shovelling assistance to South Australia, what we need to do is to release the burden of the renewable energy costs on that state and make the state more competitive. Right now, we have both the LNP opposition and the Labor Party government in Queensland wanting to increase renewables, yet they are both saying they want to stimulate the Adani coal project, yet neither are doing so, because they are afraid of the Greens pressure.

Senator Cormann, if we were to get the Adani project going, it would provide a lot of revenue for our federal government and our state government. If we made that coal—and Queensland coal is of very high quality—available to South Australia to burn, then we would also ease South Australia's energy costs. Instead of subsidising their industry, maybe they would attract more industry. That is a way out of your dilemma that would both increase revenue and reduce costs in South Australia. I would like your comment on that, and I would like your comment, Senator Cormann, on whether or not there is any hope of untangling the messy and counterproductive hodgepodge that is the tax system in this country, which is made even worse by a renewable energy target that seems to be driven by Greens ideology that is contrary to the facts.