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

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. I understand it is not a point of order, and I understand that you're drawing my attention to it. I will make one more point before coming to the point that is at the core of this bill. We're told 97 per cent of climate scientists say that carbon dioxide from human activity is detrimentally affecting global climate. The reality of that study, when one goes into the details and the data by John Cook at the University of Queensland, shows that the actual number of scientists, the percentage of scientists claiming global warming will be due to production of carbon dioxide from human activity, is 0.3 per cent. But, more importantly, it doesn't matter if it is everyone if there is no evidence. And not one of those 0.3 per cent of scientists has ever produced any evidence that we are affecting global temperature or global climate.

We see instead of science—from the Greens, from the Labor Party and, sadly, from some Liberals—an appeal to name. Well, the CSIRO told us, and yet it hasn't got any evidence. We see calls of ridicule. We see smears, we see labels, but we don't see any evidence of cause. Why? Because these people pushing these claims are not scientists. Scientists are those who follow the scientific process—that is the dictionary definition. Someone with a bachelor of science is not a scientist if he or she doesn't follow the scientific process. Universities now teach people what to think, not how to think, and we see government funding being wasted there.

What I'm bringing your attention to, Madam Acting Deputy President, is that regulation based on nonsense is destroying industry, destroying jobs and raising costs of living astronomically in this country. And I then ask myself: is it malice? Is it deceit? No, it is stupidity and gutlessness. Political correctness has now meant that people are afraid of speaking out, and, as someone from a remarkable cost-of-living summit held by our office in Brisbane on Friday from our office said, we're paying the bloody bills—the people of Australia.

It is impossible for regulators to be all-knowing, and yet that is exactly what is needed for a regulator to be effective. Regulation has been aided and abetted in the destruction of Australian industry by the shovelling of tens of millions of dollars, or hundreds of millions of dollars, to parasitic intermittent energy providers. Warren Buffett, the world's greatest investor, said there is no sense at all in investing in wind energy unless it's heavily subsidised, and that is why he invests in wind energy. Greg Combet, the former director of a union super fund company and the former secretary of the ACTU, once he was parachuted into this place, allocated the shovelling of tens of millions of dollars to the union super funds based on wind farms.

The best government is small government. We ask all Australians across our communities and across our nation: who knows what's best? Who knows what we the people need? Who can best spend our money, our family's money, and who can best look after us and our families? The answer is not government. It's individuals. It's small business. It's free people. We now have a call to return to Australian values, mateship, a fair go, care, being fair dinkum, truth and openness, law and respect for people.

This bill starts to redress the mess that has been created by Kevin Rudd's government, followed by Julia Gillard's government, based on a lie that they put forward. We see John Howard and the Liberals as gutless and not able to stand up to the Labor Party onslaught of deceit on climate. We see Nick Xenophon and his team as ignorant of the facts on climate. We see the Labor Party and the Greens as dishonest on climate. Big government is the worst way. Energy prices have doubled in 10 years. Reliability has reduced. Security has been killed. And we see the state of South Australia now. Thanks to the Nick Xenophon Team and the Greens, including Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, we see the government now relying upon the herd mentality, not facts. We see the deceit and the dishonesty of the Labor-Greens coalition on energy, we see the Liberals being gutless and we see this weakness and this dishonesty combining to destroy Australian jobs. Our last car will be made in this country next month. That's it. Our farmers are doing it tough because of cost of living. Food processing is now tough. We need to return to honesty, and this bill, by at least removing one of the parasitic entities from this parasitic process, is a good start. But we need much, much more. We need a return to truth.