Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senator Cadell, move:

That the following matters be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by 15 August 2024:

(a) the full effects of energy transition on regional and remote Australia; and

(b) any related matters.

It is with pleasure but an enormous amount of frustration that I move, along with my colleague Senator Cadell, for the ninth time to attempt to get a Senate inquiry into this very important matter for regional Australia.

I stand here as someone who has been a longtime supporter of renewable energy. I recall being at the opening of the Woolnorth Wind Farm on the north-west coast of Tasmania, one of the very first in the country. As a supporter of the proposed Robbins Island wind farm that's currently going through its environmental approval process, I'm not someone who is against renewable energy or the importance of renewable energy and its role in the transition that the country is currently embarking on. What I am against is the complete bulldozing of this process by this government, who promised to be open and transparent with the Australian people before the last election but continues to proceed to trample on their rights, to refuse to hear their voices or allow their voices to be heard in this place through a Senate inquiry that will look into the effects of the transition. We were told during one of our attempts last year that we didn't need to worry about this: that the government had set up its own process and that Mr Dyer was going to undertake a consultation around the country to look at the effects and report back to the government. So we really didn't need to worry—there was a process in place.

What did that process find? What came back from that process undertaken by Mr Dyer, who I met? I sat down and had a conversation with him while he was going about that process. Mr Dyer's report shows one massive fail on behalf of the government. Even the government's own report said this process and what was happening around the country wasn't working properly. This government's own report confirms that there are chronic problems, with a survey showing that a staggering 92 per cent of respondents were dissatisfied with the level of engagement from project developers. The survey also found that more than 90 per cent of people were dissatisfied with the information being provided or with their concerns being resolved. How much more damning can a government's own report into the processes that currently exist be? I've spoken to some people who, like me, are huge supporters of this process. I heard from one person involved in an organisation supporting energy transition. The route of the transmission lines across their property has been changed seven times, and the consultation hadn't been adequate. This is a farmer who's supporting the process, and this is what this government are supporting.

Senator Cadell and I have tried to be very constructive with this process. We've worked with the Greens. We've spoken to the crossbench. We understand that they come from a range of perspectives, but the motions that Senator Cadell and I put up have made a very genuine attempt to be sympathetic to those concerns. Likewise, we are concerned. I have heard through evidence to a joint standing committee inquiry that the payments made to Indigenous Australians by these project proponents vary from state to state. In Queensland, a grazier will get more than an Indigenous owner will. Explain that to me. Why isn't that equal, and why is it unreasonable that this parliament investigate that? We've even been concerned about the impacts in the context of environmental concerns, which I genuinely believed that the Greens and some of the others on the crossbench—Senator David Pocock, who's opposed this all the way through—might have been interested in. When just a few weeks ago I attended a presentation in this place by a former member of the Queensland Greens, who showed the group assembled some images that had been taken on the development of some of these renewable projects in Queensland, I was gobsmacked. I've been minister for forestry on a couple of occasions. I've shadowed the forestry portfolio. I've had all sorts of accusations made against me for being a destroyer and being someone who supports the forest industry, and particularly the native forest industry, over my time in this parliament. I have not seen anything that compares to this, and it absolutely confounds me that the Greens—particularly Senator Pocock, who came in here talking about the importance of the environment—wouldn't be the same.

This particular person, who is a former member of the Greens, helped campaign to support the election of Senator Waters, so they are not a radical in that sense. But these are a couple of the points that this individual, who on his own time came to Canberra to express concerns about what's happening in northern Queensland, where there are thousands of hectares being impacted—environmental lands. This is his report: no sediment controls on the works, no erosion controls on the works, infrastructure being built in areas of concern right down the Great Dividing Range, and one project involving 1,300 hectares of prime koala habitat. I watch the ads for the WWF on television telling me that koalas might be going to go extinct and that I should donate to the WWF to prevent koalas going extinct, and they will campaign for it. Where were they? There was not one submission in the planning process for any of these developments in Far North Queensland from the WWF, the Wilderness Society, the Australia Conservation Foundation or the Environmental Defenders Office, who are being funded by this government to protect the environment—not a peep from these organisations. Not a single peep! Yet we are seeing koala habitat destroyed.

That brings me back to the question: where is the support in this chamber for these environmental impacts? We've had thousands of farmers come to Canberra on a number of occasions and come into this place to try and express their view. Their voices can't be heard. They've come from Far North Queensland to Brisbane to have their voices heard. They've gone to Sydney and Melbourne. And we've seen the results of the government's own work—92 per cent not satisfied, yet the government still has its head in the sand and refuses to allow these people's voices to be heard on the record so that we can have a sensible process for transition that is fair to the farmers, allows a sensible process of transition of the energy system, provides appropriate environmental controls and supports the communities where these things are occurring. Why won't the Greens and the crossbench support this? You really have to wonder why. There are genuine concerns by a former member of the Greens political party, who took his own time to come to Canberra to talk to us about it, yet they won't support these things. They won't support an open process that allows this to be properly investigated, and you really have to wonder why.

All that is before we get to the impact on the oceans. The government's trying to stop gas mining off New South Wales. There are probably a few seats of concern there for them. But, if you look at what's happening in Gippsland and the situation in the South East Trawl Fishery, which lands more than 20,000 tonnes of fish into the Australian market every year—by far the largest supplier of local fish to consumers in Sydney and Melbourne—that particular fishery is subject to more than 90 per cent of the marine farm impacts on commercial fishing in Gippsland.

Now, why can't their voices be heard? Why are they being silenced by the government? Why won't the crossbenchers support the coalition in a sensible approach to considering the impacts of these developments? We have tried to work cooperatively with the Greens and the crossbench. We've incorporated their concerns into our motions, and they continue to vote against it. So, you wonder why.

And when you hear what's happening in some of those windfarms up in Far North Queensland—the fact that it's all about the money, that they're paying no tax, that they're delivering no energy but are selling the credits to the gas industry—and then you look at where the money's coming from: I mean, this environmentalist from Queensland called them carpetbaggers. And if he didn't, I will, because that's what's going on. Look at the donor disclosures, particularly for Senator David Pocock, disclosing total receipts of $1.797 million into his campaign account, half of it—$856,382—coming from the carpetbaggers in the renewable energy sector, Climate 200: bought and sold, bought and delivered. 'We want our projects to go ahead. We don't want any interference. It doesn't matter about the impact on the environment. It doesn't matter about the impact on Aboriginal lands.'

Who cares about the farmers? This government doesn't. They're taxing the farmers to fund the importers of biosecurity risk, so why would they worry about what's going on on their land as it is? They're buying their water back. Why would they worry about it? Government doesn't care about farmers. It clearly doesn't care about the environment. It clearly doesn't care about Indigenous Australians, despite all the claims, because they continue to bulldozer over them and refuse to allow their voices to be heard through a Senate inquiry that Senator Cadell and I have now requested, as of today, nine times.

But we're starting to see the evidence come out anyway. They come to Canberra, they come to the chamber, they're threatened with eviction. It's outrageous the way people who are genuinely concerned about the impact on their farms, their livelihoods, their marine environments, the environmental lands and particularly Indigenous Australians are being treated by this government, who could quite easily allow a very sensible motion to be supported and a very sensible inquiry to go ahead, particularly when its own process found that 92 per cent of people were dissatisfied with what happened. It's an absolute disgrace that they won't allow this motion to go ahead. (Time expired)

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to this motion about the impact of transmission lines. It's the kind of motion that we've come to know as 'Transmission Tuesday'. But, today being Monday, I'm going to rename this motion 'Mathematics Monday', because for too long we've been told that we have to follow the science, but there's never any attention paid to the actual mathematics that underpins the science. If you look at all the great scientists, they're actually famous not for their theories but for their mathematical algorithms or the constants that they came up with. Whether it be Einstein and his E=mc2, Planck and his E=hv, Avogrado's number, Planck's constant or Wien's law, all of these guys came up with a number. So today I'm going to look at the numbers behind the claim. The reason I am doing this is that, yes, it's true that renewables and transmission lines will have a devastating impact on the environment and they will have a devastating impact on the cost of energy, so let's just acknowledge that.

People love to conflate the issue between the science and the environment. One of our party's values is the need to protect the environment. We can tick all that off. I love the environment and protecting the environment, but I want to focus on the mathematics. Yet again, I absolutely believe in climate change, because the climate changes every day; that's called the weather. We can take that out of the equation and go back to the underlying lie that underpins the justification of this expenditure and waste of taxpayers' dollars and that will have such a devastating impact on our economy and the climate, which is the greenhouse gas theory. It's not a greenhouse gas law; it's a theory. It doesn't become a law until a mathematician proves the theory.

Their theory is that an extra hundred parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere will heat up the atmosphere by one degree. Technically speaking, the CO2 has increased by 140 parts per million in the last hundred years or so, and they're arguing that the temperature of the atmosphere has increased by 1.4 degrees. Effectively, a hundred parts per million has increased the temperature of the atmosphere by one degree. Let's divide that by a hundred. One part has increased the temperature of the 10,000 surrounding molecules of nitrogen, N2, and O2 by one degree. The first law of thermodynamics, which is the science of heat, says that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It can only be transformed or transferred. What that means—ironically enough, I learnt this in maths, too, not physics—is the laws of momentum. Temperature is ultimately a measure of mean molecular momentum. If a car that weighs one tonne is travelling at 100 kilometres an hour, and it hits another stationary car that weighs one tonne, assuming no heat loss, the most that stationary car can travel is at 100 kilometres an hour. The car that hit it, if it was only travelling at 100 kilometres, cannot convert that into 150 kilometres. That is the law of conservation. Energy cannot be created. It can only be transferred or transformed.

With that in mind, we apply that to the molecules in the atmosphere. In order for one molecule to transfer heat to 10,000 other molecules and heat each of them by one degree, the temperature of that molecule has to be 10,000 degrees. I'll qualify that, because CO2 has a specific density of 1.53—in other words is 1½ times heavier than the combined weight of N2 and O2 in the atmosphere. I won't explain that. That's molecular weights. You can work that out yourselves. Long story short, that means that one CO2 molecule has to have a temperature of 6,600 degrees in order to transfer one degree of heat to 10,000 molecules. Here's the thing: the sun has a temperature of only 5,700 degrees Kelvin, so the greenhouse gas theory proponents are saying that the temperature of a carbon dioxide molecule actually has to be hotter than the sun. That is ridiculous. You talk about Jesus feeding 5,000 people with a couple of fish. This is like the Jesus molecule, CO2, which can transfer heat to 10,000 molecules. That cannot happen. That mathematical equation alone destroys their argument just like that.

I won't finish there, because I'll go to the second law of thermodynamics, which says that the entropy of a system must always increase. What does that mean? It means that heat rises and heat expands. The greenhouse gas theory has this idea that somehow heat gets trapped in the atmosphere. It's like a blanket in the atmosphere that traps heat. That's not true. It is true that CO2, carbon dioxide, absorbs radiation and photons—I'll come back to that with a third thing I'm going to. But right now there is not a solid object in the atmosphere that traps convection. Yes, CO2 does absorb and emit photons, but it does not trap convection. A greenhouse gas, for example, will allow sunlight in. The air will heat up. It will rise, but it cannot rise outside the greenhouse. Eventually, the heat gets trapped at the top of the greenhouse. Overnight it cools, and then the hot air condenses back into liquid and it goes back into the plants. There is nothing that traps heat in the atmosphere other than gravity itself, which I'll talk about later. We know that. The evidence of that is the fact that the height of the troposphere at the equator is 16 kilometres. The height of the troposphere at the poles is only six kilometres. Why is the height of the troposphere at the equator so much higher than the height of the troposphere at the poles? It's because it's hotter at the equator—because heat does not get trapped; it rises.

Going back to the first law, imagine a carbon dioxide molecule. We've seen what happens when steam runs out of a jug. When the jug boils, the steam comes pouring out of the jug because hot air goes from hot to cold. If you have a shower and you keep the bathroom windows closed, the room steams up. If you open the windows, the heat runs out. It's like having a shower down at the beach or when you go camping. You don't trap the heat; it just disperses into space. You've got to remember that outer space is a very, very big place. The temperature in outer space is actually 2 degrees kelvin, or minus 270 degrees. It is constantly sucking heat out of the atmosphere. This idea that somehow heat gets trapped by CO2 is complete rubbish, because CO2 is not a solid object. It cannot trap conduction.

I've spoken about conduction and convection—the first and second laws of thermodynamics. I'll now speak about the third way in which heat is transferred, which is radiation. I will quote no less a figure than Albert Einstein himself who said, on page 14 of his 1917 paper, that radiation is so insignificant that it drops out as compared to other forms of heat transfer. What he means by that is that radiation is next to nothing. So, if I walk out one sunny day and I feel a bit of heat on my face, that's radiation. But radiation does not have the same force as a flood or the wind, as anyone can tell you who has seen a cyclone and has seen the impact that the wind can have, or who has seen the impact of conduction when we have a car accident or some form of physical contact, which is conduction. That's Einstein proving that.

I'll go further into radiation, because this is the argument they love to confuse people with. I'll admit that the greenhouse gas theory is based on a partial truth. It is true that CO2, carbon dioxide, does absorb radiation. But here's the thing. Every molecule has a certain number of vibrational frequencies. That's based on the number of atoms in that molecule. So CO2, because it has three molecules, has four vibrational frequencies. Those frequencies are at 2.8 microns, which is incoming radiation, an asymmetrical mode at 4.3 microns and then two outgoing modes—two degenerate modes—at 14.8 microns.

The interesting things about this is that it is true that CO2 absorbs the photons that travel with these particular frequencies. The best way to imagine this is to think about learning to surf. In order to stand up and catch a wave, you've got to be paddling in the same direction as the wave, and you've got to be travelling at the same speed in order to get on the wave. That's how it works with radiation. Radiation is transparent to most molecules, unless it's travelling at exactly the same frequency. We know that CO2 absorbs incoming radiation at 2.8 microns, and we know, because of Planck's law, that it also absorbs outgoing radiation at 14.8—let's just call it 15 microns. Again we rely on Planck's law. Max Planck was one of the great scientists of all time. He came up with his theory and said the energy of a wavelength is inversely proportional to the width of the wavelength. Because the incoming radiation at 2.8 is much smaller than the outgoing radiation of 14.8 microns—14.8 divided by 2.8 is about five—the energy absorbed by CO2 on the way in is actually five times more powerful than the energy absorbed on the way out.

We can see that, again, if we look at the equator. The maximum temperature around Singapore, for example, is around 37 degrees. Interestingly enough, I did a post on this back on about 15 or 16 September 2022, where I pointed out that the maximum temperature of Singapore was about 35.6 degrees. Suddenly, within a year of posting that, the all-time record maximum temperature of Singapore is now 37. But, if you look at maximum temperatures of cities around the equator, they will be around that 35- to 37-degree mark. If you compare that to the inland temperatures here in Australia—for example, in Wilcannia—it's closer to 50 degrees. So we know that cities that have high humidity—that is, lots of water vapour in the air—actually have cooler maximum temperatures. But you don't just have to look at cities. You can look at coastal locations. We know that cities that are on the coast tend to be milder and have cooler maximums, albeit that, I admit, they have higher minimums as well. So the water vapour and the greenhouse gases tend to modulate the temperature because they are constantly absorbing and emitting photons. But let's not forget the second law of thermodynamics: it is much harder for an atom up in the air in the cooler parts of the atmosphere to emit a photon downwards, because it's warmer, because heat always travels north. So most of the photons emitted by CO2 will actually still rise.

And let's not forget the first law of thermodynamics: if a CO2 molecule does absorb a photon and absorbs energy, it's not stationary; it's not going to sit in the same spot. If it gets more energy it's going to heat up, and it's actually going to rise by itself. This, yet again, is another thing that invalidates the greenhouse gas theory.

But let's not stop there. I actually asked Larry Marshall, the former head of the CSIRO, if I could have the model that the CSIRO used to calculate net zero, because, being the accountant that I am and being anally retentive, I wanted to drill down into the detail of how we calculate net zero, because I'm of the belief that we actually hit net zero about four times over, thanks to the great work of Ian Plimer, a renowned geologist who understands how the Earth genuinely works. So I already think we're being ripped off.

But here was the reply from the head of the CSIRO. He goes, 'Which model, Senator?' And I go, 'What do you mean: "Which model"?' And he goes, 'Well, there are 40 different models.' 'Oh!' I said, 'If there are 40 different models, how can the science possibly be settled?' And he said, 'Well, it's different in the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern Hemisphere,' and all this stuff—the verbiage started. But here's the thing: if the science is settled, why are there 40 different models to calculate net zero? I thought that if was all settled there'd be one model.

But, you see, here's the rub: if you go and look—and I did a post on this yesterday on Facebook—at these crazy energy budgets that these people put out, they want you to believe that the downwelling radiation from greenhouse gases is 341 watts per square metre, yet the same model proposes that the energy from solar radiation that hits the earth's surface is only 161 watts per square metre. Are you seriously telling me that the downwelling radiation from greenhouse gases is over twice what we get from the sun, which actually emits ultraviolet light as well as visible light, which has energy levels that are between 100 and 1,000 times greater than infrared and longwave radiation? This sort of stuff is absurd. The key point here is always to follow the mathematics or the stoichiometry.

The last thing I want to touch on is to say that you have to ask yourself: is there an algorithm that describes the relationship between pressure and atmospheric pressure and gases and temperature? Yes, it so happens there is. It is called the ideal gas law. That is a combination of Avogadro's law, Charle's law and—

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Boyle's law!

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Boyle's law. Very good, Senator Scarr. That, of course, is PV = nRT. What's pressure? Pressure is force over volume, so there are your two Vs gone. What's pressure? It's mass times acceleration. What's acceleration in the atmosphere? It's 9.8 metres per second squared. That's constant as well. So mass is effectively equivalent to temperature. Long story short, we have to look at the entire mass of the atmosphere—not the radiation, not how much it absorbs—in order to work out the weight of the atmosphere.

If you don't believe me, look at the planet Uranus. It's actually 150 astronomical units, or three billion kilometres, from the sun. It gets very little direct sunlight. The temperature at the top of its troposphere is minus 220 degrees. Down on its surface—and I acknowledge that it is a gas surface—it's 47 degrees.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rennick, I'm loath to say this, but your time has expired. Senator Scarr, beat that!

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm speechless. It would be very, very hard to beat that. If I had had Senator Rennick teaching physics at my high school in grade 10, I would've done physics in senior. I did interject during Senator Rennick's speech. Senator Brockman is here. As he knows and as you know, all interjections are disorderly. When Senator Rennick was counting off the different laws of physics, I yelled out 'Boyle's law', which, of course, was correct. But, Senator Rennick, I must admit that Boyle's law is the only law of physics I'm aware of, so it was a stab in the dark.

I must say I also was reflecting on the laws of physics. I did make a promise to my friend Senator Cadell here and I've come up with Scarr's law of political physics. This is based on personal observation—observation of myself, not of anyone else; simply of myself. Scarr's first law—I might come up with some more!—of political physics is: a politician's words expand to fill the time available. How's that? That's Scarr's law of political physics. I thought that was pretty good. I'll come up with some other laws over the course of my career, hopefully! But I did enjoy Senator Rennick's contribution.

I have 77 pages in my hand, which is the Community engagement review undertaken by Mr Dyer and tabled on 18 December 2023, which supports this motion to set up a references committee inquiry in relation to transmission systems in our regional and rural communities. That is 77 pages of a report which makes it irrefutable that there should be this references committee. I serve as chair of a references committee, the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, and the Senate refers various matters to the committee that I chair—matters of interest to senators in this place and matters of interest to the community. From my perspective, this is a matter of intense interest to the community and this is a matter that should be referred to a references committee, and I cannot see any logical reason as to why it is not accepted for referral by a majority of the senators in this place. The only reason is political—that certain senators do not want this to go to a references committee and do not want to hear directly from the people who are impacted by these projects in regional and rural Australia.

I want to quote from Mr Dyer's Community engagement review. And I ask all senators in this place—every one of us should actually read this review document. Even if you're voting against this resolution, please read this document. Please read the feedback from local, regional and rural communities all across this country, because it's shocking. These are shocking findings—absolutely shocking findings. If you read no other page, simply go to page 8 of this report and read these statistics, the results of the surveys of landholders and community members about their experience of engagement on renewable energy projects. These are landholders and community members, the people most directly impacted by these matters.

Thank you, Senator Cadell, exactly—the people who would be able to speak at this hearing and give evidence to this references committee.

And these are shocking survey results. The percentage of respondents who were dissatisfied with the extent to which project developers engaged with the local community—what percentage do you think that is? It's 92 per cent; 92 per cent of respondents were dissatisfied with that level of engagement. The percentage of respondents dissatisfied with the explanations provided by project developers in response to their questions—these are community members raising legitimate questions—is 85 per cent. This is on page 8 of this report. The percentage of respondents who stated that the information they received from project developers was not relevant to the concerns that they raised—and we in this place are all accustomed to that; getting an answer to a question you never asked—was 89 per cent. That's nearly nine in 10. And the percentage of respondents who stated that their concerns were not addressed in a timely manner was 85 per cent.

Those are compelling results from the survey. It is for those people, the people who responded to this survey—community members in rural and regional communities—that we should have this reference inquiry. Their responses are the reason. I cannot for the life of me understand how you can stand in the way of a references committee inquiry given those responses.

Another survey in this report also leapt out to me and was deeply concerning. Listen to this: the percentage of community members who believe the local community would benefit from large-scale community projects put in their community is nine per cent—that's nine per cent or fewer than one in 10. Five per cent strongly agree, four per cent agree—that's fewer than one in 10 of those community members who are impacted by the policies made by the Commonwealth government and the state government with respect to these large renewable energy projects. Only nine per cent of local community members think the community will actually benefit from them, and you don't want to have an inquiry? When you are faced with the survey results, you don't want to have an inquiry? Seriously? Seventy-one per cent strongly disagree that their community will benefit. More than seven in 10 strongly disagree, and if you add 'disagree' the figure goes up to 83 per cent. Eighty-three per cent of the community members do not believe that their communities will benefit from these projects. In the face of those statistics, seriously, you don't want to have an inquiry?

In my first speech in this place, I talked about the need to make sure communities impacted by policies made in this place should be consulted in relation to those policies, whether they're mining projects or renewable energy projects. Whatever sorts of projects they are, it is one thing for this place to pass policies and impose the outcomes of those policy decisions on local communities, but if we're going to do that then those local communities should have opportunities. The local communities in Queensland who are impacted by these large-scale renewable energy projects have a right to have their voices heard. It is a travesty that Labor and the Greens are blocking community members in Queensland from having the right to have their voices heard in relation to these large-scale renewable energy projects being constructed and proposed in their local communities.

Seventy-one per cent strongly disagree that their local communities are going to get benefit from these projects. Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, I really do say to those sitting opposite—to the Greens and the rest of the crossbench—you should really reflect upon whether or not you want to continue standing in the way of the establishment of this references committee inquiry. The results of this community engagement review, which were referred to last year on one of the previous eight or nine occasions—is it nine occasions, Senator Cadell?

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

This is the ninth.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the ninth occasion on which we've put this up. During the course of that debate, we repeatedly heard those opposite say, 'Mr Dwyer has been engaged to do this survey.' We got the survey results, and there are 77 pages of reasons this inquiry should be launched. I call upon all senators to reflect deeply on this matter. The voices of the communities impacted by these projects should be heard.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Scarr, you broke Scarr's law right off the bat! I will try to be an exception as well, Senator Scarr—I certainly don't intend to take the full 15 minutes, but I think it is very important reflecting on my role as a senator from Western Australia, particularly as a senator who focuses on everything outside of Perth city.

The really serious concerns that people in regional Western Australia and Australia have about this move—let's call it the 'transition'; that's what the government wants to call it—to put thousands and thousands of square kilometres of activity into regional Australia—22,000 kilometres of transmission lines, thousands of wind turbines and thousands of solar farms—not to power the bush, not to power jobs in the bush but basically to power our cities. Our regional communities, our farmers, are being asked to bear the burden of these new forms of electricity generation, but they're not being allowed to have a say. They're not being allowed to comment. Perhaps even more shockingly, in this place Labor, the Greens and the crossbenchers are not even allowing them to have their say via a committee inquiry.

Senator Cadell and Senator Colbeck have put up this motion nine times. Every time I speak on this, I'm shocked that members of the Senate who take their role seriously would vote against a very nonpartisan worded inquiry into the impact of new energy developments in regional Australia. This is not an area of partisan conflict; this is about local communities being able to be heard. This Senate, through its committee system, has a right to look into those communities and to hear their voices as we put in place the frameworks for these massive changes to our energy grid, the cost of which—and when I talk about cost I don't just mean dollars and cents; I mean the impact on the environment, the impact on landholders and the impact on communities—is being borne by regional Australia. You don't put 22,000 kilometres of transmission lines through the middle of Sydney; it just can't happen. The transmission lines are running from the bush into the cities. They're impacting people who live in the regions. The developments, the wind farms, the solar farms—these are not going to be plonked in a suburb of Sydney or Melbourne or Perth; these are going to be put into our regional centres, and not in very remote communities because the cost will be too high. Even if they were in very remote communities, those people have the right to be consulted as well. And this Senate has the right, and should take the right, to look into these issues.

The fact that those opposite, with their alliance partners the Greens and the crossbenchers, continue to block what is a very straightforward inquiry, the likes of which this Senate passes almost literally on a daily basis—this one is a bridge too far for some reason. This one is a bridge too far for the government and the Greens because they know there's a lot of disquiet out there.

In my home state of Western Australia there is a proposal for an offshore wind farm along the coast, basically between Perth and Bunbury. It is a magnificent stretch of coast that Western Australians love. Many of them choose to live along that stretch of coast. I suspect, if that proposal ever gets closer to being developed, there will be a significant amount of community concern, because I've already talked to people in those areas that will be potentially affected and they are very concerned. They want their say. They have a right to have their say.

All this motion from Senator Colbeck and Senator Cadell does is set up an inquiry. It doesn't force the government to do anything. It doesn't force the Greens to do anything. It doesn't require that particular issues be canvassed—though it has terms of reference. But they're broad terms of reference. They're very standard terms of reference for an inquiry of this sort. Yet Labor and the Greens keep on blocking it. There is only one reason, and that is that it is about politics. It is about the fact that Labor and their alliance partners, the Greens, know that communities are deeply concerned about these projects and want their say on how they will work and how they will look, and to make sure the costs are not borne unfairly. Communities want to make sure that all the costs are not borne by regional Australia, that costs are actually spread out and that regional Australia is looked after.

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

We're here again today. We've been here many times, and it is disappointing how close we've been at times. It wouldn't be right to name things spoken of outside this chamber, but at one stage we got to an amendment that would have seen coal seam gas and things like that on people's properties thrown into the scope of this as something we agreed to. An amendment was going to be put, we were going to vote for it and that vote would have got this across the line. It fell short and never happened—it was backed out of—so we're here again today. Senator Scarr sat here and very eloquently went through the reasons: 77 pages of shown failure in the Dyer report.

If I was introducing a product and I had a 92 per cent disapproval rating in market testing, it would be put in the bin. If I had a product and it had an eight per cent approval rating, in terms of benefits to the buyers, it would be put in the bin. But what is being done with this policy? It is being accelerated. It is being fast-tracked and rammed down throats.

Let's not pretend that the government is afraid of what the report will say. The committee we're sending it to will sit there and go through this. No particular group has a majority. The committee will go through the process. The government are scared of what will be said in evidence to it; they're not scared of what the report might say. They'll be scared of even hearing the story. As parents, sometimes we protect our kids from nightmares. We protect them from bad stories, from monsters and from the bogeyman. But this is the people of Australia, and they are being prevented from being told the truth because of the fear of what that truth holds.

We heard about the numbers. Ninety two per cent of people fear that the consultation on this process isn't good enough. Only eight per cent or nine per cent think that their community will benefit from these programs. A report hidden in Victoria says that 70 per cent of agricultural lands will disappear to build these things. We had a motion today talking about stopping PEP-11, where we might see four gas rigs off the coast of the Hunter. In that corner of the chamber there was consternation that four gas rigs might be off the coast pumping gas. But instead, we're hearing that 400 wind turbines, 280 metres tall—when offshore wind has never been commercially viable anywhere in the world—is a good thing. This is the hypocrisy of this place.

We hear that out in the Central West and Orana area there are kilometres of lines going through revegetation areas. They're going through family farmlands. They're going through important environmental lands where people have been denied the ability to farm for years because of the state of those lands, but they're okay for transmission lines. In Oberon, we're seeing towers being put on top of cliffs 600 metres tall—another 285 metres on top of that—almost a kilometre above the mean ground level, and that is okay.

We've seen former senator Bob Brown come out against these wind towers. We've seen other Greens campaigners come out against the transmission lines because they see what's happening. That is the evidence. They hear fear coming from the people. In the Illawarra they hear about the offshore wind down there coming forward. We're hearing about a political decision in relation to VNI West, where I'll be in a couple of weeks, to move the line hundreds of kilometres away because it suits some politicians, but it doesn't suit the landholders. All through the New England in New South Wales there are windfarms and wind factories going up everywhere. This is the whole point. They call them windfarms because it sounds nice. They are industrial installations in rural areas.

These people cannot have a voice for the fear of truth in this building—not fear of a report or fear of legislation, but the fear of truth. Have we become so brittle in our country now that we can't hear those truths? Never mind doing anything about it. Have we become so fearful that we will not give those people a platform to speak their truth? I ask that for all the people I talk to throughout New South Wales—from New England, through Port Stephens, through the Illawarra, out in Oberon, and out through Orana and the Central West. That is all they are asking for at the start, and we can start finding solutions. This is what we're not looking at. Anyone can find a problem. Some of these people have solutions. The way we negotiate the land, the way we acquire land, the height of these wind turbines, the distance from houses, the distance from property—all of these things are thought through. Instead of acquiring an access lane that comes through and takes up the land, can we acquire the whole property and the value and the business for a cheaper rate than diverting the line, for example? All of these things have to be thought through. We have to become a parliament of solutions. This is hard; we get it. But some of these solutions may be contained there.

This motion will not go to a vote tonight. It will go to a vote later this week. And I would ask that we walk in to hear some truths. I have not come in here casting aspersions here and there about what money is here and what money is there. That will happen. This process will happen. In terms of environmental impact statements, a 28-day period to study 900-page documents is not enough. Getting black paper bags with compulsory acquisition notices on your fence and gate is not good enough. Not having a say on how this happens—because we're using the state compulsory acquisition laws that are not 'just terms', like the federal law—is not good enough, nor is promoting this race to programs. I sit in here and I hear very good arguments when the people who are against nuclear say: 'There is not this built in the world. It doesn't exist. You're making something up.' But, on the other side, there is no commercially viable floating offshore wind farm in the world. There is no commercially viable green hydrogen electrolyser in the world. But we have to take their word for it that that exists. I am prepared to take a leap of faith on those things, but we can't take a leap of faith on reading these people.

I'm not conflating numbers. There weren't thousands out the front; there were hundreds out the front. There were large numbers out the front on this, but the number in Mr Dyer's report doesn't lie. It represents the thousands of people that didn't come here and who couldn't come here because they're trying to make a living on the farm. Let's just stick with those numbers. Ninety-two per cent say this is failing as a process. Only eight per cent see real benefit to their communities of this process. That's not even a consultation. Seventy-seven pages of failure is the result of the report we were told we were waiting for here, yet the answer is the same—no to this study. People can argue that this is about politics, but the 'no' is about politics as much as the 'we want it' is about politics. We don't want to hear that the disaster story is about politics, because it might interrupt a program we're happy with. No-one is thinking about the improvement it can make to that process. No-one is thinking about doing this. Australia is a big country. There's room for everything, except that our policy seems to be punishing Australians for others. And, if we are a chamber that cherishes truth, if we are a chamber that cherishes Australians, we shall stop, think about this, invite these people to our building and ask them, 'What can we do better for you? '

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no other speakers, the question is that the motion moved by Senator Colbeck be agreed to. A division having been called, I remind honourable senators that, it being after 6.30 pm, the vote on this motion will take place tomorrow. The debate is adjourned accordingly.