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

I will say that Senator Moore is right: Senator Roberts is sorely missed in this place, especially when it comes to debates to do with climate change. He was the only one in this place who really had a clear understanding and knew how to debate this issue.

I believe that a lot of people have been led down the garden path so far as climate change goes. I remember Professor Tim Flannery making comments over the years like: 'We will never have floods again. This whole country is in drought. Therefore, we must build these desalination plants.' So what did we do? We went out and built all these desalination plants to be left in mothballs, costing taxpayers approximately $31 million a year—that's for one—to have them in mothballs. We were listening to these professors who went and bleated their beliefs—it was never the case—'The fact is we've got these rising seas and waters and all this flooding will happen.' Well, it's yet to happen.

We have used climate change as a furphy. People have no understanding of it. Over the years I've listened to sceptics, to people that are scientists who are saying it is happening and to scientists saying, 'No, it's not happening.' These scientists have been employed by certain organisations because they've got a job now; there's a lot of money in it. Taxpayers are funding this to the tune of billions of dollars. It's become a political football. Even in our educational system, we are actually pushing this agenda. It's being used as a political football without clear science.

None of us, not even I, can get up and speak with regard to science. Do I know exactly what's happening? No, I don't; I have to rely on others to try and give the right information. How many times have we heard now that they've taken the temperature out in deserts or in concrete jungles and have come back with a temperature gauge and it's not the case at all? I'm not denying there is climate change, but is it man-made? Has anyone stopped to think about the volcanic eruptions that are happening or the earthquakes that are happening? Have we actually been looking at the factors? What about the atomic bombs that have been let off in this world? Has that had an impact on it?

The oceans actually make about 97 per cent of emissions, and we're talking about a small, minuscule amount that's supposed to be created by humans on the planet.

Labor's policy of 50 per cent renewable energies by around about 2030 is absolutely ridiculous. We are not going to cope. If you head down that path, we are going to end up as a Third World country. We are feeling the effects of it now. People are struggling to pay their power bills. In Queensland, 430 people a week are unable to pay their bills and are being cut off by their power suppliers. I've just come back from India. If you think you've got problems here, go over to India—the smog that's in that country there. They're burning fires to get warmth because they don't have coal-fired power stations or the coal that they need to give themselves energy, so they're burning anything on the streets to get warmth and cook their food.

Here in Australia we have energy resources. We have an abundance of coal and gas, but we don't keep it for our own needs or energy here in Australia—to keep our own manufacturing industry going and so the pensioners can turn on a fan or heating when it suits them. We are destroying our own country because you're headed down this path where we've got to appease everyone else without protecting ourselves.

Renewables will come. There will be a time for that when we actually have the technology to be able to store the energy. But to head down this path, destroying families, businesses, industries and manufacturing when most of us in this place have no idea what we're talking about when we're making legislation—I think you have to look at the factors and start looking after our own country first without being led by those who have more to gain by selling their own product. They don't understand and they don't give two hoots about the people in this country who are struggling to keep their heads above water. What I'd say to the Greens and about the Adani— (Time expired)