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

This is not the first time the Senate has debated the need for an inquiry into the effect of industrial wind, industrial solar and transmission lines on rural and remote Australia. The reason is simple. As I travel through Queensland listening with my constituents, they let me know in very clear language that there must be an inquiry into this scam, into this destruction.

I want to name and honour and express my appreciation for the people from Victoria through to New South Wales through to southern Queensland and Central Queensland and North Queensland for standing up, in rural communities in particular but also, increasingly, city folks. I want to single out two names in particular: Katy McCallum and Jim Willmott. People in this protest movement know of them, and I thank them for their outstanding work. Katy has been a real dynamo, full of information. Thank you so much.

Australia's net zero energy transition is a complete disaster. These things are destroying Australian's productive capacity, taking a coal powered generation capacity that offers cheap, reliable, affordable, accessible, secure, stable energy to industry and to homeowners and families and turning that into a catastrophe—an economic catastrophe, an unreliable catastrophe. Jobs are being destroyed and exported to China. In January, Alcoa announced the closure of the Kwinana aluminium smelter, with the loss of 850 staff—850 jobs!—and 250 contractors. The closure was caused in part by Australia losing its competitive advantage in power. And that's extremely important. The cheaper and more reliable the energy, the more competitive and productive a country is, and the higher the standard of living and the higher the wealth for everyone. That has been the message of the last 170 years of history. And we are committing economic suicide.

A report into Victoria's renewable energy and storage targets, released and then withdrawn last month, stated the following, 'Achieving net zero requires the construction of unprecedented'—there's that word again—'amounts of renewable energy in Victoria, more than 15 times today's installed renewable capacity, according to the current best estimates.' It continues, 'Analysis indicates that to meet net zero targets using onshore renewables could require up to 70 per cent of Victoria's agricultural land to host wind and solar farms.' Those are their words: 70 per cent. Well, good luck with that, because you'd be starving, watching the wind turbines not even turning and the solar panels cooking the earth. Finally, the truth is out there.

No wonder this Labor government is buying back water and eliminating major infrastructure in regional and remote Australia—in short, making life tougher and tougher for the bush, and hollowing out the bush. No wonder approvals are being guided through for bug and lab-grown protein. These will be our food sources, once the net zero agenda is completed. If you don't believe me, go and listen to the parasitic globalists. They've said exactly that.

This Labor government has every intention of turning the bush into one giant industrial landscape of wind, solar, batteries, transmission lines and pumped storage. It's antihuman. The minister for misery, Mr Chris Bowen, is wrecking the bush. The minister for misery, Mr Chris Bowen, is wrecking Australia. The minister for misery, Mr Chris Bowen, is killing people's lifestyles in this country and killing our futures. We've just enough land left over now to grow beautiful quality beef and agricultural products, for the billionaire parasites the Prime Minister is so fond of hobnobbing with. So they'll shut down agriculture, except for that small quantity for the parasitic billionaires—produce that will, of course, be available to the nomenklatura: the class of bureaucrats, journalists, academics and politicians who promote these measures with the understanding that they will never be restricted by them. This is the truth of the net zero agenda.

Now, I travelled through Far North Queensland in January and visited the areas to be desecrated with wind turbines. I learned about the aquifers that run from the beautiful, amazing Atherton Tablelands—amazingly productive land—out to the Great Barrier Reef, taking water under the sea and then feeding it under the reef as far as 50 kilometres offshore. That's a fact. These ancient aquifers will carry any pollutants—including naturally occurring arsenic—out to our beautiful Great Barrier Reef. Pollutants are being disturbed by construction of these wind turbines.

I saw the rockslides that occurred during the recent cyclones, which residents reported as being the worst they could remember. Climate hasn't changed. That's natural, up in North Queensland, because of the wet summers. These rockslides extended from the top of the mountains to the road at sea level. This is natural in North Queensland, with beautiful mountains and lots of rain. This devastation is in an area that is part of the same mountain range where wind turbines will be erected. So they're going to loosen the mountain tops. If the government is not getting up there with seismologists and surveyors to see what caused these rockslides, then the outcome will be more devastation.

There has been too much looking the other way or turning a blind eye, and too much wishful thinking, in the planning for net zero. There's been too much blindness—people groping around in the dark, ignoring the data. This inquiry will be a chance to ask hard questions about the real environmental and financial cost to Australia and the real impact on regional, rural and remote Australia.

I want to read from some notes. I want to honour and appreciate Steve Nowakowski. He was in bed with the Greens. He's a dedicated conservationist, which made him wake up to the fact that the Greens are not conservationists; they're just antihuman. He had courage. He was a booth captain with the Greens during their election campaigns, very much pushing their agenda, but he had the courage to inquire, to ask questions and to change. He had the courage, once he woke up, to oppose, to get the data and to tell the truth. Steve Nowakowski had the courage to speak out.

There has never been any data from any government agency anywhere in the world, nor from any institute or university, that shows the underlying logical scientific points and empirical scientific evidence to justify this climate fraud. There has been no data for solar and wind. The CSIRO's GenCost, as other senators in this parliament have attested, is a complete fraud. It is fraudulent. They're basing their conclusions on false evidence, false data. They've fabricated it. They've omitted solid cost data. That's because what they want to show is that the government's policy of solar and wind is the cheapest. Solar and wind are not the cheapest; they're by far the most expensive. First comes hydro, second comes coal, third comes nuclear and then way, way behind come solar and wind.

I'll read some of the things that are happening because some people in the world are waking up. This is from an article by Chris Mitchell in the Australian yesterday:

Some environment journalists are blind to what's really happening globally in fossil fuel use and the renewable energy transition.

This certainly seems to suit Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who is failing to meet his government's commitments on the electricity network rollout and power price reductions.

These were promised by the government, but so far prices have risen, and they will continue to rise.

He goes on:

On almost every energy issue, Bowen and his media cheer squad ignore setbacks in the northern hemisphere where coal and gas are being burned at record levels, the US is winding back EV mandates, two of Europe's biggest carmakers, Volvo and Renault, are reducing EV investment and the EU looks likely to start to unravel its commitment to achieve net zero by 2050.

Mercedes is cutting back. Toyota and Honda were never committed anyway, and now they're openly talking about it. He continues:

Thermal coal use globally reached an all-time record in 2023. Global coal exports topped one billion tonnes and coal-fired electricity generation between October 2022 and October 2023 was up—

up, up, up—

1 per cent to 8295 terawatt hours. Emissions from coal-fired power last year topped 7.85 billion tonnes of CO2, up 67 million tonnes.

They're up because they don't see this problem, because they know the data. Mitchell continues:

While coal use fell in Europe and North America, that was more than offset by coal burnt in Asia. Indonesia was the world's biggest exporter of thermal coal last year—

they've passed us; we used to be—

at 505.4 million tonnes and Australia number two at 198 million tonnes—

40 per cent of what Indonesia exported, and our production is up seven per cent. But we can't burn it here. We can give our wonderful energy to other countries and let them burn it and make cheap energy. The article continues:

Use of gas globally rose 0.5 per cent last year as China emerged from lockdowns. That growth is expected to increase to 3.5 per cent this year.

… Hydro-electric generation and biofuels, which can count as renewable energy, exceeded wind and solar in the renewables ledger.

So the renewables ledger is rubbish; it's mostly hydro. Even so, renewables globally rose but wind and solar accounted for only 12 per cent of all power used. Further, he says:

The Doomberg energy news letter that publishes on Substack went through the latest International Energy Agency coal numbers. It points out China now uses 55 per cent of the world's coal—

And we sell it to them. They now produce 4.5 billion tonnes and want to get to five billion tonnes. We produce 560 million tonnes, one-eighth or one-ninth of what they produce. He says:

… coal makes up 70 per cent of China's CO2 emissions.

Who cares, because as humans we don't control CO2 emissions. The level of carbon dioxide is controlled by nature. I'll continue with the article:

Even the Guardian now acknowledges China is approving new coal power projects at the rate of two a week.

Yet in much of the Australian media, China is regularly described as a green superpower. Sure, it exports wind and solar components made in China with coal-fired electricity!

That sabotages our energy, because we have to subside the solar and wind. The article goes on:

Writes Doomberg, China is "more than happy to profit from countries willing to sacrifice themselves at the Altar of the Church of Carbon and even happier to recycle those profits into securing coal at prices lower than they would otherwise be if so much international demand hadn't been voluntarily removed from the market".

China is being helped because other countries are taking coal off the market, so China pays a lower price. The article goes on:

India, the number three CO2 emitter, pledges to hit net zero in 2070—"the functional equivalent of never", Doomberg says. India has announced an extra 88GW of capacity by 2032—

eight years away—

up 63 per cent from the projections released in May.

Solar and wind are basically just for show, and they've basically admitted that. They're not going to commit suicide, because they've seen us liberate our people with hydrocarbon fuel—coal, oil and natural gas. The article goes on:

The world has little chance of meeting net zero by 2050: figures released in December at COP28—

the UN's gabfest—

in Dubai showed CO2 emissions up 1.1 per cent last year despite a fall of 419 million metric tonnes outside China and India. China's emissions rose 458 million tonnes and India's 233 million.

Predictions EVs will conquer the motoring world are proving just as inaccurate as peak coal forecasts.

That is, terribly inaccurate. The article goes on:

Both Porsche and the EU are pushing for delays to Europe's commitment to phase out internal combustion engine (ICE) cars.

Porsche chief financial officer Lutz Meschke told Bloomberg last month he believed the EU's 2035 deadline for stopping ICE manufacture could be delayed. Politico reported on January 18 that the manifesto of the European People's Party, the continent's largest conservative political force, wanted the unwinding of the 2035 ICE ban.

They want it undone, reversed. The article goes on:

Volvo, which has been telling the world—

bragging to the world—

it is moving to electric only, last month said it would no longer provide financial support to the loss-making Polestar electric vehicle maker and would look at selling its 48 per cent stake to Chinese parent company Geely.

French giant Renault has "scrapped the separate listing of its EV unit Ampere", according to London's The Daily Telegraph on February 2.

Toyota, which environmentalists last year were criticising for being a laggard on EVs, again looks to have made the right call on continuing to invest in hybrid technology.

I want to point out that the German government, the EU and the UK government to some extent—largely, in the UK—have cut their net zero ambitions in half. Some have even called them off.

In the time remaining, I just want to point out that people in this Senate receive money from Climate 200, which is funded by Simon Holmes a Court, who is making money off solar and wind subsidies. Teals people in the lower house and teals senator David Pocock get money from Climate 200. They're getting money from parasitic billionaires to push the agenda for making these parasitic billionaires billions more in subsidies. That is a fact. Then they blindly turn away from looking at the devastation that solar and wind are causing. No wonder people in rural communities and right across Australia are tired of the higher prices for solar and wind, higher prices for electricity and the devastation on our forests and our farming communities. We need an inquiry.