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

Well, all I can say is here we go again. Labor and the Greens have again sacrificed Australian prosperity on the altar of climate change. Labor and the Greens have again colluded to make everything that matters more expensive for Australians already struggling with the rising cost of living. Labor and the Greens have again schemed to create more crippling energy shortages in Australia. Labor and the Greens have again acted together to put the brakes on Australia's economic growth and then put it in reverse. Labor has shown it cannot stand against the climate extremism of the Greens. Anthony Albanese, our PM, and Chris Bowen have capitulated to Adam Bandt's hypocrisy.

Even if you accept the stupid idea that cutting Australia's human carbon dioxide emissions is necessary, and I certainly don't accept it, restricting gas supply is just about the worst thing you can do. Increasing gas supply is absolutely crucial to shoring up unreliable renewable energy. Even the Europeans understand this. The European Union have reclassified natural gas as a clean, green source of energy because they've learned, at great cost to their economies, they can't rely solely on intermittent wind and solar power. That's why they're firing up gas power plants and even restoring coal power plants.

What the Greens and Labor won't tell you is that forcing Australian companies to cut carbon dioxide emissions as part of a global effort is utterly futile. Even if Australia's CO2 were cut to zero overnight, CO2 increases in China alone would negate this cut within a year. This is where Greens hypocrisy is at its very worst. They work to cripple Australia with CO2 cuts but don't condemn China for contributing 30 per cent of the world's human CO2 emissions. They're happy to accept China's solar panels and steel for wind turbines, made with Australian iron and Australian coal, but won't condemn China for its plans to add two billion tonnes to its annual emissions of 12 billion tonnes. The Greens will condemn Australia for buying a few nuclear powered submarines but not China for expanding its arsenal of nuclear weapons. They will criticise Australia over human rights but not China's Communist regime for its much worse human rights violations. Hypocrisy!

The Greens' insistence that CO2 is a pollution is a lie. They are lying to us. There would be virtually no life on Earth without carbon dioxide—no plant life, no animal life, no Greens senator and no useless idiots to vote for them. CO2 is a natural part of life, and it's undeniably a scientific fact that human caused CO2 is only about three per cent, if that, of all the CO2 in our atmosphere and oceans. We cannot, and will never be able to, control or change the 97 per cent of CO2 from natural sources.

Even one of the Greens' favourite prophets of doom, Tim Flannery—remember that man who said, 'Our dams never be full again,' 'It'll never rain,' and 'We'll be in drought', this same man who they hold up there on his platform—said:

If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years …

So why all the panic? Why all the scaremongering? Why go on as if you're destroying the planet? That's what it is—scaremongering. You've got nothing to back it up with, not even that holier-than-thou Tim Flannery, who you quote and you hold up there. Those were his words:

cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years …

So you're prepared to destroy our industries, our jobs, our manufacturing and the cost of living. You're prepared to do that. This is Labor. This is the Greens. This is what people voted for. Well, not until the people of this country start hurting, really hurting, will you understand the impact of all these stupid, bloody policies going through this parliament and maybe change your minds and wake people up in this country.

Forcing companies to cut CO2, or otherwise offset them, will only increase their costs, forcing them to cut Australian jobs and eventually take their business somewhere else—but not before they're forced to pass on these enormous costs to Australian consumers. Australian consumers, you are going to pay for it.

This legislation is nothing more than a carbon tax in disguise, along with a direct attack on the gas industry, crippling supplies when energy shortages demand we increase then. This makes absolutely no sense. In fact, this attack on the gas industry places the Labor governments' own CO2 reduction targets in jeopardy, because there are no renewables without reliable natural gas supplies. There is no economic hydrogen production without natural gas. There is no fertiliser for our farmers without natural gas. The Greens want to end natural gas production. They want to get rid of it. Their economic and scientific illiteracy is almost as stunning as their hypocrisy, and Labor has rolled over and given in to them.

It will be interesting to find out just what else is in this deal Labor has done with their Greens devil. It will be interesting to see what else this legislation will do as it plays out in the economy. It doesn't define what a safeguard mechanism credit actually is or what it's supposedly worth. It invests incredible power in the hands of the minister to personally decide if Australian companies have done enough to meet CO2-reduction demands and to punish those who haven't.

There is so much wrong with this legislation, not least that, once again, Labor is ramming it through the Senate with the help of the Greens' rookie senator David Pocock. One Nation puts Australia and Australians first, so we cannot possibly support a bill that worsens our cost-of-living crisis, costs Australian jobs and cripples what is left of Australian industry and manufacturing.

I will also add, we need to address the gas that we have off the North West Shelf that is in Commonwealth waters. Deals have been done to allow Western Australia to take 15 per cent of that domestic gas supply which belongs to the Australian people. This is in Commonwealth waters. Now Santos is going to put another gas field off the shores of Darwin, in Commonwealth waters, that we are going to get nothing for.

The Labor Party talks about how we're going to fund the $368 billion for the nuclear subs. I'll go on about it again. We have a resource that we can make so much money from for the country, yet no-one is prepared to do it. The Prime Minister said we should get rid of the petroleum resource rent tax. No-one has done anything about it. The coalition did nothing about it. You're giving them an uplift factor of 15 per cent. They're making billions out of it. The fact is that they have over $400 billion in tax credits that belong to the Australian people, but you keep giving them a 15 per cent uplift factor on their investment every year. That has accumulated to the credit of $400 billion. We see about $77 billion or $80 billion worth of gas going out of the country, and we get nothing for it.

What fools the people in this place are to not have done anything about it. You're reluctant to do it—why? Have deals been done with these multinational companies? People in Australian companies and businesses are struggling to get the gas supply that they want to run their houses. Now you come up with the policy that you're going to get rid of the gas in Australian homes and replace it with electricity. How the hell are you going to do that, when you can't even get enough electricity now? The plants are shutting down because of reliable supply, which we don't get through solar and wind. Yet you're prepared to get rid of gas and tell everyone they have to go to electricity. At whose cost? Who's going to pay for this?

We have one of the most resource-rich countries in the world, and you are not going to deal with this. Why? I don't understand why you're not addressing this. This gas belongs to the Australian people, and we should be getting the money from it. Make them pay for it. Get rid of the PRRT. You could do it tomorrow, but you keep giving them more and more leases. Let's see what you do about Santos. Let's see if you're going to make them pay for the gas. Tell the Australian people. Do you know what? You're not going to. That's my understanding of it. How pathetic you really are. You don't care about the Australian people, people living in the homes. There's not enough housing. Bring in another million-plus people—about 650,000 next year. Disgusting.