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

I welcome the opportunity to talk about energy security and energy affordability. The European Union has threatened to impose a tariff on our exports to punish Australians for not having destroyed as much of our economy as the Europeans have destroyed of theirs with ruinous renewable energy. At the same time as the EU is in the grip of record cold, solar panels over there are covered in snow and windmills are frozen solid. Germany, the home of the Greens, has just opened a new HELE coal plant, Datteln 4, which has 1,100 megawatts of reliable base-load coal power. It is proving the difference between keeping the lights on and sitting in the cold and dark. Heating and cooling are not optional to the elderly and the infirm. Energy security and energy affordability are essential.

The welfare of Australians must be our foremost consideration in energy policy, yet in Australia the Greens insist on pursuing a strategy that will create a hostile energy environment. The old parties—the Liberals, Labor and the Nationals—have joined in. In Western Australia the Liberal and National parties have announced a plan to close their coal power plants by 2025, in four years time. The New South Wales Liberals and Nationals are closing the Liddell coal power plant in 2023. What's ALP policy? They want to shut down half of our coal-fired power by 2030. At least, I think that's right. The ALP policy changes depending on who's telling the story and where they're telling the story.

Every major party has the same policy: to close our base-load power plants without first building replacements. One Nation is the only party with an energy plan that will provide for Australia's energy security now and in the future. We will build a 2,000-megawatt hydroplant near Townsville and microhydro across the grid. One Nation will build high-efficiency, low-emissions—HELE—coal plants in the Hunter and at Collinsville in Queensland. One Nation's plan will bring back manufacturing and jobs and deliver employment security and higher wages—in short, a better standard of living for all Australians. I'll say it again: One Nation is the only party of energy security and energy affordability.

I want to mention a phrase used in the Greens motion: science based 2030 energy policy. In December 2016, Senator Ian Macdonald said, 'The science has never been debated in this parliament—never—until Senator Roberts raised it.' I can still say it's never been debated, because no-one will debate it. It's been 515 days now since I first challenged in the Senate Senator Waters, the current Greens leader, and Senator Di Natale, the leader at the time, to a debate on the empirical scientific evidence of their claim and on the corruption of climate science. Not once have they provided that evidence. Not once have they accepted a debate. It's over 10 years now, nearly 10½ years, since I first challenged Senator Waters, at a debate at the powerhouse in New Farm on Thursday 7 October 2010. Senator Canavan talks about Nationals policy. They went to the last election with a policy for coal, and every policy since has said nothing about coal. One Nation is the only party of energy security and energy affordability.