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

Well done, everyone. What an amazing job you've done. I'm delighted to announce that the Commonwealth of Australia has reached its net zero target under the United Nations Paris climate agreement 30 years early. Well done, everyone. Senator Babet, well done.

I thank assistant minister McAllister for the definition she used in the Senate chamber during the Climate Change Bill. Article 4 of the UN Paris Climate Agreement says, 'Net zero is a balance between human production of emissions and removal of those emissions by environmental sinks.' Our country has so many forests that Australia already sequesters, sinks, three times more carbon dioxide than we produce. Worldwide forests and oceans sink three-quarters of human production. Under the government's own definition, Australia is already at net zero and the rest of the world is not far behind.

But the Paris Agreement definition of net zero ends with these words, '… in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty'. The UN Paris Agreement allows development. That's great news for our Project Iron Boomerang. Yet, notice the last part, 'eradicating poverty'. If the Albanese government takes measures under its Climate Change Act that increase poverty in Australia it will be in breach of the UN Paris climate agreement that the Liberal-National government signed. Yet, high energy prices from insane energy policies are increasing inflation, destroying wealth, destroying jobs and opportunity, and forcing people into poverty.

Our human carbon dioxide production is not breaching the UN's Paris Agreement. Instead, the destruction of baseload power in this country and worldwide is breaching that agreement, and it does not require that action. The Albanese government cannot pick and choose which elements of the UN Paris Agreement it uses. One Nation will hold this government to the letter of the UN agreement Australia signed, and that is simple: climate zealotry and deceit must not push one person into poverty—not one person. Not one. None.