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

I rise as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia. I am very proud to represent my home state and stand up for everyday Australians who had to endure years of green guilt. The debate on this matter of public importance is in the context of the statements made by Senator the Hon. George Brandis QC earlier today during question time, when he stated:

At the heart of our national interest is our alliance with the United States …

I note that the ALP and the Greens have subsequently said that we need to abandon the TPP because of President-elect Trump's opposition. I say to my fellow Queenslanders that this historic debate in this chamber marks the beginning of a Western spring. Today begins the process by which we expose the truth of the green guilt elite—those who sit in this chamber and others who stand over Australians as if they were our lords and barons at birth, as if the red of this chamber were infused in their blood as a right. The world of the elites came crashing down when Donald J Trump was elected. They knew it last Wednesday, and that night they collectively wet their beds. Mr Trump has previously called the alleged human-caused climate change catastrophe a hoax, and has thus vowed to cancel the USA's participation in the Paris Agreement, as well as ending President Obama's war on coal by removing a number of climate policies and significantly downsizing the Environmental Protection Agency.

One Nation applauds President-elect Trump's highly moral and courageous position, yet many in this parliament still want to recklessly plough ahead with economy-killing climate policies such as ratifying the Clayton's Paris Agreement, in stark contrast to the plans of President-elect Trump. If the honourable Prime Minister would like to reconsider his government's stance, then my office team is in a strong position to assist, given, firstly, the presence of our team's economic policy adviser and former Trump campaign economic policy adviser, Darren Brady Nelson, and our growing relationships with senior members of the Trump presidential team like Myron Ebell, who will reportedly lead the EPA, and David Malpass, who is under consideration to lead the Treasury. We need to use every resource at our disposal if we are to extricate ourselves from reprehensible accords such as the Paris Agreement.

It is important at this juncture to highlight that the Paris Agreement, like all Australian federal, state and local climate policies over the past few decades, was not subject to a proper and independent cost-benefit analysis for the benefit of the Australian people. Who do they think they are, these people passing such policies? A Paris Agreement cost-benefit analysis is long overdue and preferably should be done by the highly credible Productivity Commission. Any such cost-benefit analysis will need to include at least two scenarios: one based on the evidence-light pseudoscience of the climate alarmists, such as the minority within the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the UN along with their related calls for massive government control, and, secondly, an alternative based on the evidence-heavy science of the climate realists. The National Interest Analysis for the Paris Agreement states:

The Office of Best Practice Regulation confirms that a regulation impact statement is not required for the ratification of the Paris Agreement.

This is outrageous, given that the website of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says:

Treaties which affect business or restrict competition are also required to be tabled with a Regulation Impact Statement (RIS).

Such a study often includes cost-benefit analysis, as it should and must. My recent submission to DFAT on the Paris Agreement emphasised the crucial need for cost-benefit analysis. One of the reasons was that cost-benefit analysis most explicitly recognises that human wants are infinite, and natural resources are finite. Decisions have to be made between alternative government actions that compete for such resources. There are always choices to be made, even if the choice is to do nothing.

It is also important that I draw the Senate's attention to the wealth of experienced people President-elect Trump has gathered around him to dismantle the elites running the global climate agenda. The potential future head of the EPA, Myron Ebell, is currently the director of the Centre for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Sometimes called a 'climate denier in chief', he has called for abolition of the EPA and wants to scrap the Paris Agreement, a deal Trump has vowed to withdraw from. The potential future head of Treasury, David Malpass, is currently the founder and president of Encima Global, an economic research and consulting firm based in New York City. He served as Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary under President Ronald Reagan and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under President George W Bush. As may be recalled, Pauline Hanson's One Nation party took to the last federal election a comprehensive environment policy. To quote from it:

Climate change has and will continue to be used as a political agenda by politicians and self interest groups or individuals for their own gain. We cannot allow scare mongering by people such as Tim Flannery, who make outlandish statements and are not held accountable. Climate change should not be about making money for a lot of people and giving scientists money. Let's know the facts and scientific evidence to make a well informed decision as to how best to look after our environment.

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Our solution is comprehensive because core problems cannot be solved by ad hoc, one-off party politics. That failed Liberal-Labor-National approach, combined with Greens grandstanding, is causing Australia's deterioration.

To tap into Australia's wealth and to share it with all Australians we need to get to the root causes, the core problems and address them comprehensively. We need to involve people across Australia in developing solutions to restore Australia's productive heartland and wealth for the benefit of all.

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Instead of so-called 'Alternative Energies' that are really 'alternatives to energy'—

as South Australia shows—

we will work to reduce energy prices and bring back dependability and reliability through environmentally responsible, energies. Low cost energy enables efficiency and productivity that generate wealth to protect the environment.

For the pleasure of the Senate I highlight the following summaries provided on the environmental policies of the Trump administration. President-elect Trump, who has called the alleged human-caused climate change catastrophe a hoax, vowed to cancel the United States' participation in the Paris Agreement. Mr Trump has also committed to scrapping the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration's signature effort to reduce production of carbon dioxide with no scientific benefit or justification. Mr Trump has said he will review and possibly reverse the EPA's determination that carbon dioxide is a pollutant endangering public and environmental health. Reversing that endangerment finding would end the legal justification for a range of climate policies. In the process it would end radical environmental activists, who are supported by American billionaires such as George Soros, and their ability to use the courts to impose climate policies on an unwilling public whose elected representatives have repeatedly rejected climate policies. Who do they think they are? These people are funding activists destroying Australian industry and jobs, and they are closely connected to the Hillary Clinton camp and President Obama's advisers. Who do they think they are, interfering in our country and our state and destroying our industry and our jobs?

Before the election Mr Trump said he would reverse Obama administration rules imposing undue burdens on businesses. In particular, Mr Trump said he would cut the EPA's budget dramatically, virtually reducing it to an advisory agency, and review all EPA regulations, eliminating many of them, because 'overregulation presents one of the greatest barriers to entry into markets and one of the greatest costs to businesses that are trying to stay competitive.' Hear, hear, Mr Trump!

Mr Trump says he wants to open up more federal lands to oil and gas drilling and eliminate regulations that have contributed to the decline of his coal industry. I put it directly to the chamber: many here joined the conga line behind President Obama when his policies suited them and said we had to follow our ally's lead. As Senator Brandis said this morning, our most important strategic alliance is with the United States. If it was good enough for some here to use the US when it suited them, then it is good enough now for us to follow the Trump administration. Australia's prosperity and the prosperity of the world is now reliant on our country withdrawing from the great global warming swindle. Future generations will judge us poorly if we do not take action now to stop our deindustrialisation. For their sake, let's trump control with freedom.