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

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I agree with Senator Babet that the government's spending is wrongheaded and is causing more harm than good. The Albanese government's announcement this week to cut back on real infrastructure spending to make way for nonsensical net zero spending is counterintuitive, a wrecking ball for future generations. Taxpayers have already paid for the national electricity grid through their tax payments and through their electricity bills. Taxpayers have already built beautiful, cost-effective baseload coalfired power stations and the associated poles and wires.

Instead of using the annual share of the budget that goes to infrastructure to build something new and useful, the Albanese government is tearing down what has already been built and building it again—and, much like this Prime Minister, building it with something that is not fit for purpose. Wind and solar are the most unreliable and expensive forms of power, once everything is factored in, including transmission lines. Wind turbines last for 15 years and solar installations about the same. All the nature-dependent power installed under this and previous governments has to be replaced before we get to 2050 and then replaced again and again every 15 years after that—again and again and again: insanity, a permanent black hole that benefits nobody except the predatory, parasitic billionaires who pull this government's strings.

Speaking of fit for purpose, Snowy Hydro 2.0 has proved that city bankers like Malcolm Turnbull are crap at picking infrastructure projects. To continue throwing good money after bad with this failure will come at the opportunity cost of funding sensible infrastructure projects like Big Buffalo dam and hydro, Hells Gates Dam, Koombooloomba hydro, Urannah Water Precinct, Emu Swamp and South East Flows Restoration. These are all worthwhile infrastructure projects that One Nation will build. And inland rail to the Port of Gladstone, the east-west rail line and a steel park at Abbot Point are projects One Nation will continue to push and support and build.

Then there are the road projects, schools, rural hospitals and so much more that this government is shelving so it can waste money on the UN's net zero fairytales—nightmares. Weather-dependent generation needs batteries to back it up—more expense. The environmental destruction is finally getting attention, after scars have already been cut across national parks all over this beautiful country. Each gigawatt of coalfired power has to be replaced with five gigawatts of wind or solar. No amount of solar will provide power at night without expensive batteries that are dirty to manufacture and last an even shorter time than the solar panels they so positively affirm.

The net zero alliance puts the cost of 100 renewables with no blackouts by 2050 at $1.5 trillion—260 gigawatts of installed capacity to replace 60 gigawatts of coal. No wonder the infrastructure minister, Minister King, announced that the Albanese government would require state governments to pay for at least half of any infrastructure project in their state. And new infrastructure projects must be over $500 million before the federal government will fund their half. That will leave the states to pay for most infrastructure projects entirely. That's Victoria done for, with all the debt Labor Premier Andrews left behind.

What next, a state levy to pay for infrastructure that the federal government should rightly be paying for now? This is socialists taxing the life out of the public. Australia already ranks 57th out of 62 of the largest economies for income tax levels, with first being the lowest tax rate, and 56th for company tax. We're nearly the highest. Foreign corporations, of course, are not included. They're token. Tax payments are only for public relations. Successive governments have been unable to deal with multinational tax avoidance—because they're not really trying. Electoral donations keep getting in the way—funny how that works!

According to the OECD, Australians' average annual wage growth from 2019 to 2022 was the seventh lowest among the 38 OECD nations, at less than three per cent. Inflation is now six per cent, after being at eight per cent. If everyday Australians feel like they're working harder and going backwards, it's because they are. As Senator Babet quite rightly pointed out on this motion, if it feels like your mortgage and rent are a struggle to pay, it's because they are—thanks to Labor. Tax cuts for upper-income earners are coming next year. Here's a better idea: index the tax thresholds so that Australians don't pay tax when their wages rise to compensate for inflation and push them into a higher-rate tax bracket. We should be indexing taxes to the inflation rate to prevent bracket creep.

The Prime Minister has wrung every cent out of everyday Australians, and the political polls are saying quite clearly that people are jack of it. One Nation are now the party of workers. One Nation are the party of sensible economic management for the benefit of all Australians. We have one flag. We are one community. We are one economy. We are one nation.