Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we are at the end of another session of the parliament, the summer session in the Senate. There are so many things to talk about here. We can talk about transmission lines, the plight of our farmers, the vaping bill that is coming forward—which is meant to fix all the vaping problems—freedom of religion and many things. But let's talk about competency, because that is what is missing from this parliament and from this government.

We stand up and talk about identified problems, but it seems that we never have the real answers to fix them. We stand up in here and talk about housing problems—'Oh, we passed a bill and we didn't even vote for it, but—as we heard yesterday in the chamber—'how great is it to have a target.' There is no actual expectation that we are going to meet that target, but we've got a target—and 'let's just be happy we've got that'. I have a great target of taking my family on a lovely holiday to Europe and flying first class and taking them to the best places. It is not going to happen. It's just like the housing policy here. The competency to meet the aspirations does not exist with this government on anything. We talked about vaping, and we've got this 'great' bill, where we are banning vaping for the two per cent of vapes that are non-nicotine based. Tell that to the 1.2 million daily users of vapes. Nicotine vapes are already illegal. They are already regulated by the TGA. But another bill will do it! We're not fixing anything. The government is feeling good about themselves that they are talking about fixing a problem. Competency is when stuff happens—when the rubber hits the roads, when things get done—not when we pat ourselves on the back and say, 'What a great job we've done.' There is not enough competency, not enough diligence and not enough action by this government to make Australia a better place.

Let's get back to basics. On energy, people want to know that when they turn the power on that it is going to be there and it is not going to cost them their house or their grocery bill for the month to use it. But that is not what we're talking about here; we are talk about how great it is to take up 77 per cent of rural Victoria—to meet their green needs—with windfarms and solar panels and taking the rest of the land to build transmissions lines. Why? They say one megawatt of renewable power is cleaner. But you need three lots of renewable energy to replace one of dispatchable energy by coal, which we currently have. Ninety per cent of our power will disappear over the next nine years, and there is no plan for that. Tomago Aluminium, the biggest electricity user in New South Wales, is close to me in the Hunter Valley. They use 950 megawatts of energy—nearly a gigawatt. They are in the market for green energy. Are they in the market for 950 gigawatts? No, they are not. They are in the market for three gigawatts of renewables because they need that to replace what they have got.

We sit over here and talk about the accountability and the transparency of this government—when you have to sign an NDA to talk to them. We talk about building houses and targets for housing we will never meet. We talk about replacing energy for cheap energy that is not cheaper. Sooner or later, the Australian people will stop worrying about what is being said and will start worrying about what is being done. When that happens, this government will come up so short it won't be funny. At home, we know that things are not easier than they were two years ago. Things are not better than they were two years ago. They've only got harder. They're only going to get worse until there is some transparency, until there is ownership of the problems and we, in this chamber, start taking responsibility for making things better rather than talking about making things better.