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

I rise to speak to the Climate Change Bill 2022. A more accurate name for this legislation would be 'Australia's surrender note'. If you are about to be sacrificed to a false god, you should go kicking and screaming to the altar. In this case, the Labor government would have us go meekly to slaughter and thank the witchdoctor holding the knife. This legislation is not in Australia's best interest. This Labor government is not acting in Australia's best interest. It is legislating drastic emissions reductions with virtually no indication of how this will be achieved or how much it will cost Australian taxpayers.

In selling this stupidity, Labor promises a jobs bonanza in industries that do not exist and emissions reductions from technologies which do not exist. With this legislation, Labor promises to make even larger cuts to emissions. This isn't going to stop at 43 per cent. The only guarantees from Labor's climate change folly and this legislation will be the death of Australian manufacturing and innovation, chronic high unemployment, reduced living conditions and standards, and even greater rises in the cost of living and doing business in Australia. It will make our current cost-of-living crisis seem like a walk in the park. If you don't believe me, just ask the Europeans. It will make absolutely no meaningful difference to global greenhouse gas emissions.

Australia's total annual emissions are just shy of a 500 million tonnes. The CSIRO stated that our emissions are just over one per cent of global emissions. China's total annual emissions are approaching 12 billion tonnes. In the past 20 years, China's share of global emissions has doubled from 15 to 30 per cent. China's emissions are projected to continue to increase for another decade, adding another two billion tonnes to their annual total. It will completely negate any reductions Australia might achieve. What are you going to do when China reneges on its commitments? Impose trade sanctions? Tell them how they're destroying the globe? I'd really like to know: what are you going to say or do? Labor wants Australians to live in a tremendous pain for absolutely no gain.

For decades now, Australian governments have spent many billions of taxpayers' dollars building wind farms and putting solar panels on household roofs. The result has been massive increases in the cost of energy for most households and businesses, in the order of 300 per cent or more. At the same time, coal-fired power stations have been shut down prematurely, and much of Australia has faced a shortage of energy, with worse to come in the future. How has this been in Australia's best interest, especially given that global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, not fall?

Just how friendly to the natural environment are all these wind farms and solar panels? You need 800 tons of concrete for the foundation of a single wind turbine, which in turn requires the burning of up to 45 tonnes of coal to produce. Even more coal is used to make the steel and other metals in these turbines. Actually, it's about another 220 to 260 tonnes of coal to make one wind turbine. In North Queensland they are clearing thousands of hectares of rainforest for wind farms, killing our native flora and fauna—great for the environment! Where is the screaming about that one? Are these your environmental credentials? Give me a break.

This is not long-lived technology. The turbines last about 20 years before they need replacing, and solar panels don't even last half as long. Look at the prime farming land being forever ruined to install solar panels. When they're broken up by a hailstorm or something they leach toxic metals and chemicals into the soil. Where are all the useless old solar panels and wind turbines going to be disposed of—landfill? They do that in America. Tell me what your plan is. Labor has plans everywhere; you're telling me you've got plans. What's your plan for this? Where are the solar panels and wind turbines going to go?

Maybe the Greens can tell me. They're pushing for this. I'm not against renewables, but this unnecessary rush is crippling us. If these technologies are so great, let them compete on a level playing field instead of subsidising them at an enormous cost to taxpayers. We must manage the transition much better, with a mixture of low-emission coal, gas, hydro, wind, solar and nuclear, with the main priority being not to add to Australia's cost of living and to ensure reliable supply.

Consider the plans to increase the cost to consumers of purchasing and using vehicles with internal combustion engines to promote more uptake of electric vehicles. How will this do anything other than, once again, raise costs for consumers? Where is all the energy needed to power this EV fleet, when we are already facing energy shortages that are only forecast to become worse? Will the government subsidise the enormous cost of replacing the batteries in these fire-prone vehicles? How will it pay for it? In the end, all these additional and increased costs must be borne by taxpayers and everyday consumers who are already struggling with sharp rises in the cost of living and rising interest rates.

All of this will be imposed by elected people in this building who are not struggling with the cost of living and who have job and wage security that most Australians can only dream of. It will be imposed by people who have little scientific acumen, if any. Who cares what clueless politicians think about climate change? We should be listening to the credible scientists—those who don't peer review themselves, anyway—and make policy accordingly. This will hand uncounted billions of dollars to foreign owned multinationals that are already well versed and exploiting weak Labor and coalition governments and feasting on Australian taxpayers.

This is the bright future from Labor and its Greens and teals cohorts—and, I've got to say, a few of the Libs thrown in there as well, like Senator Birmingham and Senator Bragg, and I can name a couple more—and the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, reducing our standard of living and making us a Third World country. It's all based on the ridiculous idea that unless Australia does this the entire world is doomed. That is completely untrue. It's all based on climate change modelling which has been proven completely inaccurate. I wouldn't even trust or believe a word the IPCC say. Remember how we were told that Australia's coast would be inundated by the sea while our dams went empty? We even heard the Labor Party get up and say that the seas are rising. Well, they're not. Actually, some of the islands have grown in size. Where are all the people who are wanting to sell their homes on the shoreline? They're not wanting to. I'm sure there are some prominent people in this place as well as business people who own prime land by the seaside. Why aren't they leaving? Why aren't they selling their properties?

We've had these predictions that the world's coming to an end, by countless people. Really? Has it happened? It hasn't happened. Remember how we were told that we'd experience more-frequent storms and bushfires? Well, we've heard that today. It hasn't happened. The fact is that natural weather related disasters were more frequent before 1960 than they are today. We don't relate to anything in this country before 1910, by the records, because there were higher temperatures then, in the late 1890s, but we don't go back that far.

Stop scaremongering in this chamber and in our schools. Our decisions must be based on the true proven science and not be for political or individual financial gain. But it isn't. We don't control the weather and we don't control the climate. It's been completely proven beyond any doubt that changes to the earth's axial tilt and orbit, solar cycles, volcanic activity and ocean temperature oscillations have a far greater influence on our climate. No matter what we do, it will never change our planet's natural occurrences that have occurred for millions of years.

It's abundantly clear Labor and the Greens are deliberately ignoring the valuable lessons being delivered right now by Europe's failed experiment with renewable energy. European nations are now scrambling to fire up coal-fired power stations to make up for the shortfall of energy caused by an overreliance on wind power. They've learned they can't rely on these intermittent technologies and that they must have reliable energy to keep homes heated and the lights on.

In Germany, householders are now turning to firewood for energy to heat their homes. There is, in fact, such a high demand for wood that they're importing it from neighbouring Poland. In Britain people are dying due to lack of energy to heat their homes, because it isn't available or it simply costs far too much. Labor is legislating the same disaster for Australia. Those Australians seeking to impose this disaster on our country have been hoodwinked by false prophets such as Tim Flannery, Al Gore and Greta Thunberg. Our children are being brainwashed into believing the world is coming to an end. If you accept this unproven rubbish, then maybe the deprivation and pain to come from this legislative disaster is a harsh but necessary lesson to follow the facts and the science, rather than worshipping false prophets of doom.

Senator Malcolm Roberts has on many occasions actually stated he would debate Larissa Waters with regard to this, and yet no-one will take him up on it. Where have we really had the true debate? I'm not talking about—we're politicians in this place and we have to make our decisions based on what we research and what we understand. I think this is beyond us and we really need to hear from the true scientists, not those that do their own peer reviews or those that are pushing their own agenda because they've been given jobs in organisations and they're getting very well paid for the positions that they hold.

The decisions we are going to make about pushing this 43 per cent—and this is only the floor of emissions targets in the country—are going to have an impact on the cost of living for Australians. The cost of living for Australians now is killing them. They can't manage. People can't put food on the table. They're struggling to put a roof over their heads. Families are living in their cars. This is only going to add to the cost.

As I have said in my speech, I'm not against renewables, but you actually have to look at what's happened in Europe and other countries around the world who have pushed this for a far longer period of time than what we have, and yet we're heading down this path. Can't we see the impact it's going to have on our people here? To say you're going to create 600,000 jobs is a load of bloody BS as far as I'm concerned. Actually, I've been told that some of the science shows we're going to lose that many jobs in Australia. How can you go to renewables when you're going to actually increase jobs? Where are the jobs coming from? Solar panels? You're clearing prime agricultural land, you're sticking the solar panels on it and that's it; you walk away from it. Where are the jobs being created?

I know industries and manufacturing are shutting down because they can't afford the electricity to run it in this country, so they're going overseas. That is what you're going to do to this country. And the things that we have relied on—you talk about the coal. How is digging up coal, which we should be using for our own energy in this country—we're exporting it. No problem; let's export it. We're getting the dollars for it. So you've got a problem with exporting to China or India or any other country like that, and they're burning it. This is global. So what are you worried about? Do you think we have a blanket over our country, that cutting back our emissions is going to save us? It doesn't work that way. This is global.

So if you want to make the tough decisions then cut down all the coal mines. I'm against it because it doesn't make sense to me. We have new coal-fired power stations that are 90 per cent emissions free. We have the coal, we have the resources, we have everything here, and you just want to shut it down. I warn you: we will end up a Third World country. In Africa there are countries where 70 per cent of people don't have electricity. They're cooking in their homes by fires, which gives them health issues. There are children who can't do their homework, because they don't have electricity. They don't have fridges to keep food or medications in. They are in poverty.

This is where you've got us headed. This is where you've got the Australian people headed. This is a stupid bloody policy that I and One Nation will never support. Put a plan on the table whereby we will move forward with renewables and other energy resources that will build our country, not destroy it and future generations.