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

As an engineer, I respect and consult scientists, because lives have depended on it, and still do. As an engineer educated in atmospheric gases and as a business manager, I was responsible for hundreds of people's lives, based on my knowledge of atmospheric gases. I listened to scientists, I cross-examined scientists and I debate the science. I have never found anyone with logical scientific points based on empirical scientific evidence that shows we have anything to worry about at all.

The basics are these: when you burn a hydrocarbon fuel, you burn molecules containing carbon and hydrogen with oxygen and they form CO2, carbon dioxide, and H2O, water vapour; that's it. Carbon dioxide is essential for all life. But let's go beyond the science and have a look at natural experiment. We've had two natural experiments, global experiments, in the last 14 years. The first was in 2009, when the use of hydrocarbon fuels reduced in the recession that followed the global financial crisis. There was less carbon dioxide produced from the human use of hydrocarbons. What happened to the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? It kept increasing. What happened in 2020, when we had a major recession, almost a depression, around the world as a result of COVID restrictions put in place by governments? We saw the same reduction in hydrocarbon fuel use by humans and the same cut in carbon dioxide output from humans, and yet carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued to increase.

Those who understand the science understand that it is fundamental: humans cannot and do not affect the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; it's controlled by nature entirely. I've cross-examined the CSIRO three times now in the last few years. Under my cross-examination, which is the first of its kind in this country and the only one of its kind in the world, the CSIRO admitted that they have never stated that carbon dioxide from human activity is dangerous—never stated it. This is all rubbish that's being talked about. Secondly, they admitted that today's temperatures are not unprecedented. Thirdly, they never quantified, in three meetings, any specific impact of carbon dioxide from human activity. Never! That is the fundamental basis for policy. What's more, they showed their sloppiness because they withdrew discredited papers which they initially cited to me at their choice as evidence of the unprecedented rate of temperature change and then failed to provide the empirical scientific evidence. They withdrew the two papers they put to me on temperatures, the two papers they put to me on carbon dioxide.

There is no danger. Temperatures are not unprecedented. We need to come back to the science, not the so-called experts the Greens talk about, not the pixies at the bottom of the garden. We need to come back to the science, the empirical scientific evidence, and base policies on that.