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

I wish to add to questions from the Greens and from Senator Duniam to the minister. This has been described, and I reinforce it, as the most important bill that's ever been introduced into this parliament in terms of its costs and its consequences to the people of Australia.

I want to quote some costings found by an independent economist, Dr Alan Moran. These cannot be sensibly refuted, Minister, because they came from the government's own figures, budgets and department reports, state and federal. The report, titled The hidden cost of climate policies and renewables, prepared in August 2020, states:

… the financial impact of climate policies and renewable subsidies …

this is not basic cost for electricity; this is additional costs for electricity due to the financial impact of climate policies and renewable subsidies—

… costs households at least $13 billion annually, or around $1300 per household …

When the median income is $51,000, the after-tax median income is about $46,000. How the hell can anyone on $46,000 a year take-home afford an extra $1,300? That's before the impact of this savage rise to 43 per cent that the government proposes. In addition, according to the report—this was when the Morrison government was in power—the extra climate policies and renewable subsidies account for 39 per cent of household electricity bills, not 6½ per cent as the government typically quotes. Thirty-nine per cent—almost 40 per cent of the cost of a household bill—is additional costs due to climate policies and renewable subsidies. The report finds that there's a net loss of jobs in the economy, with every solar and wind job created causing 2.2 jobs to be lost in the real, productive economy.

Is anyone interested in that? It's not the people in this House that will be affected; it's the large majority of Australians who will suffer. Also, the market distortion that, through subsidies to solar and wind, increases the wholesale price of electricity to $92.50 per megawatt hour, up from $45.40 per megawatt hour. It's going to be horrendous. This will cost Australians trillions of dollars. It's a highly regressive tax because it will be much more impactful on the vulnerable and the people on low income.

Yesterday, we saw Senator Wong, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, in proposing this bill, unable to define what net zero is. They do not know what their own policy is. We just wanted a simple interpretation from the Leader of the Government in the Senate as to what net zero means, and she could not provide it. I'll tell you why you can't: because you've never provided any logical scientific points which are simply empirical scientific evidence provided in a framework that proves cause and effect. No-one in this chamber nor any predecessor to anyone in this chamber has ever provided that. You have never provided the specific quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on any climate factor, whether it be temperature—air temperature, ocean temperature or land temperature—or the frequency, severity or duration of storms, droughts, floods or snowfall. You've never provided it on ocean alkalinity or ocean salinity. You've never provided the specific impact, and yet that is fundamental to any policy. If you cannot provide the specific impact, how the hell can you make a policy? If you cannot provide the specific impact, how the hell can you make a cost-benefit analysis? If you cannot provide the specific impact, how the hell can you measure progress? Senator Pocock has foreshadowed some good amendments, we see, but there's no basis for the actual policy. You can't track the progress without the specific measurement. What is the impact of human carbon dioxide on any climate factor? Nothing at all has ever been provided on that, anywhere in the world.

Sixty-seven, heading for 68, per cent of Australians did not vote for the Labor Party to be in government, yet the debate has been gagged. Senator Macdonald, who was Father of the Senate at the time, in 2016 brought to the Senate's attention that the climate science has never been debated in this chamber. It's never been debated in this chamber and it still isn't being debated. I've challenged Senator Waters many times. I challenged her 12 years ago, in October 2010. She ran from the debate. She would not debate me. I challenged her again in May 2016; she ran from me again. I challenged her here in the Senate. She ran from me and has refused to debate me on either the corruption of climate science or the science. That is fact.