A 500MW battery, lunacy.
Electricity and the cost of living are all going up, Liberal/Labor haven’t done anything to help: they are the cause.
They are two wings of the same bird.
While capping gas prices might sound good in the short term, in the long term it will mean less supply and more expensive power prices when the cap runs out in 12 months.
Instead, we need to remove all of the wind and solar subsidies. Let coal do its job as a reliable baseload power and remove the roadblocks for nuclear energy.
Wind and solar caused this energy crisis, capping gas prices won’t fix it.
Transcript
President, as a servant to the many varied and hard-working people in our QLD community, I’m happy to travel back to Canberra for this session while recognising that due to yet another Labor-Greens-Teal rushed bill many senators cannot.
I’ve submitted a document discovery today to find out exactly how much taxpayers’ money was wasted on this disgusting spectacle.
It would have been wise for the Government to work out what we were returning for prior to recalling the Senate, instead of this chaos to get a bill ready at 9.30pm the night before.
With no Committee oversight, no public scrutiny, no industry scrutiny, a shocking bill rammed through courtesy of the ALP, Greens and Teals Senator Pocock in a single day, in return for quid pro quos next year.
There’s a point where the process this Government uses to get Greens’ and Teal Senator Pocock’s support moves past what is proper into very questionable territory.
Under this bill, the gas industry is being murdered for the financial benefit of rival industries – wind and solar, who are financial supporters of the Greens and Teal Senator Pocock.
It should be clear by now the Albanese Labor Party are not the ones running the country. In the senate, the Greens-Teal Pocock alliance run government.
The Treasury Laws Amendment (Energy Price Relief Plan) Bill 2022, has I’sure been met with popping champagne corks from comrades on the labour left.
Soviet-level powers right there, in the Government’s grasp.
The Government regulation will decree what gas can be sold, to whom it can be sold, for how much it can be sold, who can be refused permission to buy or sell and who can be forced to buy and sell.
The Greens and Teals can’t wait to write those regulations.
A frightening power grab from a desperate government without a clue how to solve the energy crisis it helped create and now worsen.
What industry will be next?
Don’t be fooled with this talk about temporary price caps. This legislation includes a code of conduct with permanent price controls built in.
How much will that ongoing cap be?
This is done through Legislative Instrument, so whatever the cap is, the Commissar, Minister can change it at the stroke of a pen with no appeal mechanism.
Make no mistake if this bill is passed those regulations will escalate in lockstep with the Government’s desperation to control runaway energy inflation caused from escalating power shortages.
Under the Liberal/National government, tens of billions of dollars in direct subsidies have been poured into unreliable wind and solar.
These are incapable of supplying baseload power at an affordable price.
Because the market has not closed hydrocarbon power down as fast as climate bed-wetters want, coal-fired power stations are now being threatened with closure using State Government powers.
This is what is known in finance as political risk.
As the supply of electricity becomes less reliable, afternoon price spikes are becoming common place and everyone’s power bills go up.
There’s a lesson here. Intervening in energy markets to push a political ideology has unintended consequences.
With this legislation Australia is preparing to take our place alongside the Weimar republic, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Venezuela on the list of Governments who ignored history and as a result destroyed their economies.
Venezuela should be a lesson for Australia. Socialist President Maduro spent his first term in 2012 spending every cent the Government earned from oil exports.
Windfall revenue was spent on programs that sounded good on social media, yet proved unsustainable.
Australia is spending every cent we earn from coal, gas and mineral exports just like Venezuela.
When the oil boom ended, Maduro started printing money to keep wasteful government spending going.
Australia over the last three years printed $500bn using electronic journal entries.
Maduro’s print and spend caused prices to double each week, and Maduro responded with price controls.
Australia’s inflation rate is at a 30-year high, nothing like Venezuela’s, and yet we have price controls being introduced with this bill.
Price controls cover up the problem. They never solve it. They make it worse.
To take such an authoritarian measure is an indication that something has this Government and the Premiers spooked – likely the REAL inflation rate that will result from net zero measures?
Time will tell.
The way in which a western country like Venezuela lost control of their economy should be a warning to Australia.
For three years ’print & spend’ measures have been waived through on Liberal, National, Greens and Labor uni-party voices.
Labor did not inherit Scott Morrison’s mess, Labor in the states were part of Scott Morrison’s mess.
Whether our inflation rate from this point forward moves up or down is squarely in the Government’s hands.
A small number of people in the government think they are smarter than the free market.
The same free market has for generations successfully combined hundreds of thousands of workers with hundreds of billions of dollars of capital equipment, in order to successfully manage trillions of dollars in mineral resources for the lowest cost to the consumer.
Now though, our Federal and State Labor Governments, together with the fake Christian, fake Conservative NSW Government of Matt Kean and Dom Perrottet, think this piece of legislation will fix what they broke.
So much hubris combined with so little knowledge of history & economics will be the downfall of our beautiful country.
Veneztralia here we come.
In six months the Albanese government has steered Australia from ‘welfare liberalism’ to socialism.
Next port of call will be ‘statism’ before Labor reach their ultimate destination – communism.
I notice some commentators have been calling for the Government to penalty tax the very high profits being experienced in the minerals industry in recent years.
Instead of making money for taxpayers the Prime Minister decided instead to just destroy those profits, so the shareholders don’t get them, the tax man doesn’t get them, nobody gets them AND the taxpayers are paying $1.5bn a year in subsidies from our debt-financed budget.
$1.5bn over two years is only one percent of the household and small business electricity market, this measure is more public relations than realistic assistance.
One Nation will not be wedged on this payment. Borrowing money from Australians to give back to Australians is a pointless exercise. It literally transfers money from children to their parents.
Responsible parents do not fall for this.
It is a sugar hit that takes attention away from why electricity prices are so high.
Rising electricity prices come from several different aspects of the government’s net zero transition, which, for clarity is a transition away from cheap and reliable, coal baseload power to fairy tale, nature-dependent solar and wind power.
Treasury are projecting electricity prices will rise 36% next year. If passed this bill will reduce that rise 6.5%, and if the States cap the coal price this will save another 6.5%.
In any event electricity is still going up next year. Households can expect a rise of $420 using the Government’s own sums. A rise of 23%. Almost a quarter higher.
When these measures fail, and they will, the rise will be $650.
Today I submitted a motion for a document discovery on the modelling claiming the increase will be 23% not 36%. Including the element of any electricity price rise caused as a result of the Ukraine war.
I look forward to seeing this ‘modelling’
The Treasury Laws Amendment (Energy Price Relief Plan) Bill 2022 deals with gas only. The Albanese Government has dumped the coal price ceiling on to the states to avoid having to pay compensation.
John Howard’s government pulled that same bypass around the Constitution when he took property rights away from farmers to meet UN Kyoto targets without paying a cent in compensation to farmers.
The Albanese Government has joined John Howard’s government in destroying trust in Government, with the result Government must apply more and more coercive measures to govern.
Australia’s gas price has been a problem since the end of 2020. The government’s Australian Energy Regulator confirms the rise in gas prices started a full year before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Treasury and the Government spin doctors blaming Russia for electricity price rises is dishonest. Deceit.
Gas and coal price rises have resulted from the need to back up unreliable wind and solar with gas, combined with colder temperatures and a wind drought across Western Europe.
At the same time the idiots in power in Western Europe closed their coal and nuclear plants.
Gas became the only thing keeping their lights on.
Dishonestly blaming Russia instead of the correct cause – net zero energy deficits, will lead Australia down the same dishonest, inhuman path as Europe.
This bill quite simply fixes the wrong problem.
The war on coal has meant Australia cannot meet the world demand for coal and as a result prices are high, and market demand has switched to gas, those prices are now going up.
Australia has a coal and gas supply problem, not a price problem.
Australia must take the jackboot off the coal and gas industries and allow more production.
Rather than imposing old soviet-style controls on the gas industry under this bill, the Federal Government could have gone with a much simpler and less onerous option.
Western Australia has had a domestic gas reservation since 2006. This requires Gas extractors to reserve 15% of production for Australian domestic use.
This scheme has produced a gas price around $5 a gigajoule, which is production cost plus a fair profit.
Prime Minister Albanese could have used this system on a national level. He chose not to.
Instead, the Prime Minister has gone with old soviet-style legislation that will cost Australians twice as much for gas than a reservation system would have cost.
Why would they do that unless the reason for the legislation is not the price cap and is instead this bill’s industry control powers?
In two or three years’ time the public will be marching on Parliament House to protest electricity bills that are so out of control power that companies will be disconnecting people left right and centre.
Once the serious protests start this Government will reach for the permanent price controls in this bill to force coal and gas extractors to sell to electricity generators at next to nothing, just to save themselves.
There is a showdown coming in this place.
This morning Adam Bandt confirmed that the Greens and Teals are committed to eliminating the gas industry.
Hydrocarbons have lifted Australians and the world out of poverty. The Greens will cast our beautiful nation back to the dark ages.
Gas is essential to firming solar and wind, which means gas and coal are the only things keeping our lights on, our fridges running and industry functioning.
And electric vehicles running.
Without gas and coal the economy will be entirely reliant on nature dependent solar and wind power and battery backups that carry a price tag above $100bn and require renewal every 10 years.
Green energy is no energy. Eliminating gas and coal is insanity.
The Albanese Government’s proposal for a coal price cap will not reduce electricity bills and most likely, will increase them.
Coal plants buy their coal on long term supply contracts. The cost they are paying is not the spot price, it is much less.
The cap of $125 a tonne is above the contract supply price currently being paid at coal power stations, of $80 to $100 a tonne.
It is most likely that suppliers will increase their supply price of coal to $125, knowing that’s the safe limit.
A coal price rise is the most likely outcome from these measures.
A 6.5% fall is technically impossible. For the sake of argument let’s assume the price of coal in 2023 would have been $175 and is now $125 as a result of the cap.
Let’s have a quick look at the effect of that $50 a tonne reduction.
The energy density of coal is 6.7kw/h per kilo, which means one tonne of coal produces 6.7MW/h of electricity.
That’s enough to run 1600 homes in Queensland for a day.
So a $50 saving divided by 1600 homes….at the most simple level of analysis, this measure will save householders .3c a day on their electricity bills.
Not 6.5%, which is $110 a year, $11 a year.
Because coal fuel costs are a tiny portion of the coal-fired electricity price.
The Government’s measures are being sold with a deceitful public relations spin, hiding onerous, soviet-style powers that are the real reason for this legislation.
There’s another serious risk to our energy security this bill ignores – rising interest rates.
Six interest rate rises in 6 months under this Albanese Government.
Rising interest rates increase business overheads right across the energy industry.
Our electricity generation capacity must be replaced to meet ‘net zero by 2050’ – generators, transmission lines and a whopping $100bn bill for big batteries.
Rising interest rates are pushing up the capital cost of this replacement, as well as operating costs across the energy sector.
If this Government cannot get interest rates under control the outcome will be catastrophic for taxpayers and energy consumers.
There is a better way.
Even to the global warming believers One Nation’s plan can deliver cheap, stable baseload power without upsetting your sky god of warming.
All we have to do is
- Stop closing coal power stations;
- Build Collinsville power station and replace Liddell with modern Hele coal;
- Transition Australia’s coal generators to modern HELE coal.
Transitioning to clean coal and ending government handouts for renewable fairy tale solar and wind power will dramatically reduce electricity bills.
It’s time to walk away from this net zero dumpster fire.
I call on the Senate to reject this bill and say no to soviet level powers that will inevitably backfire and cause an economic and social catastrophe.
One Nation has been right to oppose net zero madness for 25 years.
We will continue to be a voice of reason, bringing better solutions to this Parliament.
Solutions that will provide everyday Australians and the businesses they rely on with opportunity and prosperity for all.
We have one flag, we are one community, we are One Nation.
Today, after Pauline Hanson pointed out that power prices have risen 300% in two decades, the government tried to blame it all on Russia and Ukraine.
That doesn’t explain why power prices have gone up in the 20 years prior to Russia-Ukraine, but the large increases in wind and solar power does.
Transcript
The Ukraine conflict does not affect coal fired electricity prices in this country, because our domestic coal fired power stations have long-term price contracts. They are not subject to spot international prices. Fuel prices in coal fired generation are a tiny proportion. Secondly, no country transitioning to unreliable solar and wind has reduced electricity prices. Countries that increased solar and wind increased electricity prices every time. The relationship is approximately linear: more solar, more wind, higher prices.
Thirdly, CSIRO projections rely on applying favourable and unreasonable hurdle rates for investing in unreliable and expensive solar and wind costs. CSIRO cost assessments of solar and wind do not include construction costs of the roads, the bridges et cetera coming in, disposable costs every 10 to 15 years—which is three times for the equivalent life of a coal fired power station. New offshore turbines are so big that they have to build ships dedicated to moving them. The cost of the ships is not included. Batteries essential for continuity of supply in wind and solar are not needed for coal.
There is an extra $100 billion on solar and wind that is not included in the costings. Grid stability management due to wind and solar being unstable and asynchronous are not included in the costings. And transmission lines, because the distance from the generation sources to the cities where the customers are is so big that the transmission lines are estimated to be an extra $50 billion expense, are not needed for coal fired power. Why are solar and wind still subsidised? Who pays for these subsidies? It is the electricity users.
That’s what’s driving up, in part, our electricity generation costs.
The cost of everything is going up, but the Albanese Labor government is pouring more fuel on the fire by tipping billions into policies that will make electricity prices even higher. With more wind and solar in the grid than ever before power bills have never been higher. Time to give up on this pipe dream.
Transcript
President the Albanese Government’s behaviour goes well beyond a broken election promise to give cost-of-living relief. The Government is actively making inflation worse.
The inflation rate is 8% and will remain at 8% into the future, on the back of increases to energy prices. Electricity, gas, diesel and petrol are all inputs into every corner of our economy.
Forcing energy prices up to appease the sky god of warming will force up input costs right across our economy and lead to more inflation.
Weather-dependent solar and wind power will never provide baseload power. Doubling down on more solar and wind, before the added cost of changing out every wind turbine and solar panel with new ones before we even get to 2050 will lead to more inflation.
Taxpayers pay for these things twice: once in taxpayer subsidies to wind and solar and through higher inflation. Energy inflation.
Not only do we have a lack of wage rises, we have a lack of wages. Businesses are closing all over Australia as inflation wreaks havoc in the productive economy and energy costs drive manufacturing overseas.
This Government has no answers. We have just seen a child care bill that gives handouts to millionaires but fails to create a single job.
Failing to use government policy to create jobs while allowing 220,000 new migrants into Australia every year will create a pool of unemployed, resulting in reduced market power for labour. That can only mean lower wages, even before losing 8% a year off their pay packet through inflation.
One Nation believe the way to break the inflation cycle is a comprehensive root and branch review of the taxation system, to return bracket creep to wage earners while forcing big business, especially foreign corporations to pay their fair share.
Queensland Labor’s Health Department still mandates COVID injections for health professionals. Injection mandates must be abolished now. Let anyone who wants to work, work.
We are one community, one nation and Labor are a threat to breadwinner jobs.
I remember when greenies hugged trees. Now greenies chop down trees and hug manufactured wind turbines made of concrete, steel, fibreglass and gearbox oil. 40 million tonnes of wind turbine blades destined for landfill by 2050. Wind power isn’t renewable.
Transcript
There’s nothing more galling than the sight of a 100 metre wind turbine slumped over. A smouldering aluminium & concrete corpse testament to wind power’s stupidity.
Even if a wind turbine fibreglass blade makes it through a 12 year operating life, the blade is still a global waste catastrophe.
Every year, Europe already adds 2 million blades filling landfills.
At the same time that we declared plastic straws an environmental sin, our beautiful planet has 40 million tonnes of wind turbine blades destined for landfill by 2050.
Every blade of every wind turbine installed to 2030 will be in a landfill by 2050.
So-called renewables need to be renewed every 10-15 years.
We’re not building our net-zero, nature-dependent generation once. We’re doing it twice over. Or three times. With all the waste this will bring.
This is environmental vandalism, killing the environment in the name of saving it.
I remember when greenies hugged trees. Now greenies hug manufactured goods composed of concrete, steel, fibreglass and gearbox oil. Greenies are resource hogs.
Recycling wind turbine blades is not impossible. It just takes a huge amount of energy for which coal is the optimum fuel. That’s why, without affordable coal energy, wind turbine blades and solar panels are dumped not recycled.
German wind farms kill 100,000 birds a year and unlike those killed in cities, these birds tend to be endangered species due to the location of turbines.
New model turbines are approaching 240 metres in height with blades close to 120 metres.
That will need a big hole to bury.
This is not ‘free’ energy and it certainly is not ‘renewable’.
Governments should not ‘force’ a technological transition. If wind technology was any good it would not be reliant on subsidies of $500,000 per turbine per year.
Real transitions – those that serve to benefit our community – happen naturally through market forces because they have natural economic or social advantages that meet people’s real needs.
We are one community, we are one nation and the United Nations & World Economic Forum’s net-zero is environmental vandalism.
This budget will jack up power prices, keep inflation roaring to new heights and do nothing to help you from day to day. I joined Sky News the night it was delivered to talk about my initial reaction.
Transcript
Welcome back to our coverage of the budget. Tonight the Treasurer has laid out his economic plan, and while Labour has the numbers in the House of Reps, the Senate cross-bench will be critical for whether the government can pass its various measures. Here’s a reminder of the state of play: 39 votes are needed to pass bills into law. The government has 26, meaning it needs another 13 to get its agenda across the line. The Greens have 12 of those, with another five Senators representing minor parties, and one independent. Joining me live on the desk, is three of those crucial cross-benchers that could make or break the Labour budget. Senator Jacqui Lambie, One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts, and Greens Treasury spokesman, Nick McKim, great to see you all. Senator Lambie, let’s start with you. What did you think of Jim Chalmers’ first budget?
Oh, I have to say, they’ve played it very safe, haven’t they? It’s really is a mini budget. They’ve got five months up their sleeve, they’re buying time here. They’re gonna have to make some tough decisions by May. We’ve got a massive blowout in the NDIS. We’ve got the cost of living pressures out there, and I think we’ve just, I’ve just seen on the TV in the last five minutes, the gas prices are gonna go up 20% in two years. I tell you what, we are really under the pump in this country, and then we have a major deficit we’ve gotta payoff. That’s where we’re at, some tough decisions. They need to go back to the drawing board. It’s lovely, it’s all been touchy-feely. Let’s see what the May budget looks like, but they’re gonna have to make some cuts, and they’re gonna have to be tough.
Nick McKim, what’s your take on Jim Chalmers’ first effort?
Oh look, there’ll be a lot of disappointed people in the country, I reckon. I mean, this budget’s got more than a width of austerity about it. The government, and the Treasurer, have acknowledged the challenges, and Jacqui talked a little bit about those. I mean, they say they want wages to go up. Wages are gonna go down, then they’re gonna flat-line. They say they want employment to go up, but actually unemployment is going up. They say they want to be fair to people, but actually they’ve got stage-three tax cuts, which give a quarter of a trillion dollars in tax breaks, overwhelmingly benefiting the top end of town. And people who are really struggling to make ends meet, are not getting much assistance at all in this budget.
Malcolm Roberts, is it a budget for the times, as Jim Chalmers argues?
[Malcolm Roberts] It’s a budget for the continuation, and falling off a cliff I think, because workers have already gone backwards 10%. Anybody who earns a wage or salary is going back 10%, and will continue to go back because we’ve got rapid inflation. Wages won’t move anywhere nearly as quickly. We’ve got high cost of living pressures. We’ve got high energy prices. Prices are forecast to go up 50% next year Kieran, and 50% the year after. People can’t handle that. That’s a doubling of prices. 100% increase over two years, that’s a doubling. We’ve got a climate change, there’s very few specifics. The housing, we talk about a million houses.
[Jacqui] Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I can see you nodding your head Jacqui, a million houses, how? Where’s the provision?
Yeah.
[Malcolm Roberts] We can see 20, $25 billion on climate. Well, 20 of it is on poles and wires. It’s just gonna increase the cost of electricity from far-flung areas. We’ve already got the poles and wires we need from coal-fired power stations. This is absurd.
With that rewiring the nation, that project that Malcolm Roberts is alluding to there, it’s $20 billion. A lot of challenges in terms of workforce and supplies in getting that done. Does that mean that power prices rise at least in the short term until that’s all established?
Well, this budget makes it very clear that, retail electricity prices will go up 56% in the next two years. So there is no doubt that we are facing massive pressures on household bills. I wanna talk a little bit about the housing announcement.
[Kieran] There were those numbers there. So you have 20% this year, 30% next year-
[Nick] That’s right, they have compounded.
[Kieran] -for electricity and gas. Yeah, that’s 56. And then the gas 20 and 20.
[Nick] That’s right.
[Kieran] As Jacqui suggested.
[Nick] That’s right.
[Kieran] So, we’re talking a massive hit to-
We are talking massive hits on household budgets, and what the government could have done is walk away from the tax cuts for the top end, and put in place genuine cost of living measures. They could have put dental into Medicare, mental health support into Medicare, done more on childcare, built more affordable homes, wipe student debt. Like there’s plenty the government could do. And the money was there. A quarter of a trillion dollars, $250 billion over 10 years overwhelmingly favouring the top. We’re all gonna get a 9,000; Jacqui, Malcolm, and I will all get a $9,000 a year tax break, and there is nothing in that package for minimum income.
Do you think there should have been direct support on power prices? Because obviously there’s this challenge with the inflationary environment right now, that if they write checks,
Yeah, the challenges.
they could have a counterproductive effect.
The challenges with this country over the years of both major parties have sold us out. We no longer own things. This is the problem. So, we’re relying on other people to generate our power for us, and that cost us a lot more money instead of leaving it in the hands of what we should have been as private investors. That’s where we were at in 2021. And that’s been really unfortunate. I don’t know what you do about those power prices, ’cause quite frankly, we have no control over the companies that run them. They can pretty much run amok all they like, and that’s where we’re at.
Should there be price caps or something of that sort?
Something needs to be done, whether it’s price caps or, I think Daniel Andrews is buying his lot back. Isn’t he in Victoria? He’s worked out, it’s costing them a fortune. He’s got no control over it. He’s buying it off. We have control over ours in Tasmania. We’re very lucky the state government owns ours, and they could give us, they could relieve that pressure as well by giving us cuts. They don’t do that, that is their choice. We pay a little bit less than the rest of you, but I can tell you now, this is where the state government of Tasmania is really gonna feel it, because there’s no way Tasmanians can afford for our power prices to go up 5%, let alone 20.
We’re talking of massive impact. What do you think? Should there be price signal or price cuts?
[Malcolm Roberts] No, definitely not. If you look at childcare, it’s increasingly getting more and more subsidies. The prices go up, whenever you subsidise something, people charge more for it. I mean it’s that simple, this is basic economics. Manufacturing will get really decimated by this. First of all, the cost of electricity is now the number one cost category in any manufacturing, any manufacturing. It used to be labour, labor’s not anymore. It’s electricity. What we’re doing is, we’re subsidising the Chinese to instal these parasitic mal investments. They’re kamikaze investments, solar and wind, to raise the price of electricity, everywhere in the world, where they’ve increased solar and wind, they’ve increased the price of electricity, startlingly. Manufacturing will be driven out of the country yet more.
What’s your read on that? Because obviously in the short term, there are challenges with transmission. The poles and wires that we spoke about, they need to be done to accommodate.
Absolutely.
But Malcolm Robert’s argument there, that it’ll just simply continue to drive prices up, renewables.
Oh no, I mean you could legislate to put in place price caps. I mean there’s a very common thing to do around the world, and I don’t accept Malcolm’s argument there. I mean ultimately…
[Malcolm Roberts] It’s in the figures, empirical figures all around the world. Every country, Spain, Germany, any country that goes heavily into solar and wind, it increases their prices of electricity.
I know Malcolm doesn’t believe in climate change, but the sciences-
[Malcolm Roberts] I believe in climate variability Nick.
absolutely have to to rapidly reduce our emissions in this country. And the best way to provide the cheapest power is more investment in renewables, and less into propping up the dirty, old coal-fired clunkers because they are unreliable. They’re old infrastructure, building new fossil fuel plants, including gas, is more expensive than putting in place distributed generation of renewable energy close to the centres of demand, supported by battery store.
The challenge in the the short term obviously, workforce shortages, supply shortages, these are all bottlenecks,
[Nick] They are.
in terms of that process, aren’t they?
Yeah, absolutely they are. And, now there was some welcome investment in the budget into TAFE and vocational education. I think that’s a good thing, but that does take obviously time to flow through.
Do you see Jacqui Lambie, I think you alluded to it earlier, but with this spending approach, Jim Chalmers says it’s 99% of the additional commodities, and tax revenue has been banked. Is this an attempt to say, “Okay, we’re not doing a Liz Truss budget, we’re gonna be responsible, and this is almost like a stepping stone to the May budget, where those broader changes might eventuate.”
Well, I think if you follow Liz’s Truss’s track, you’re not gonna last very long. That would be my my first point. But look, we’ve been really, really lucky with our commodities in this country. We’ve made a lot of money outta them. We don’t know if we’re gonna do that next year, the year after. We don’t know whether there’s gonna be a call for as much of those resources as around the rest of the world. I wouldn’t think there will be. We’ve had a really great year on that. That’s great. And we’ve all got a little bit GST extra outta that for our states, that’s a fabulous thing. We’ve seen that, I’m sure $360 million extra in Tasmania is gonna help us a lot. We’re only a small state, and that that will go to fixing things. But we cannot rely on this. We really need to look at those stage-three tax cuts. I believe that, those people in those lower incomes, certainly give them a tax cut, give them a bit of a break. It’s gonna be tough for them over the next few years. There’s no doubt about that. But people on the 120, a 100 or 1,000, where’s the cutoff to say, “You know what? We can’t afford to give you a tax cut at this point in time. Something needs to be done.” We can save billions of dollars there. There’s no doubt about that. I have to laugh about their TAFE, when they, they’re gonna chuck a billion dollars back into TAFE, Kieran, which is lovely. I’d remind the Labour Party, they cut $4 billion outta that education fund about three years ago alongside the Labour Party. So good on you for putting it back. Better late than ever. And I’ll be very grateful for that. But right now, we have a deficit and we cannot ignore that. And we have to start paying that back. We also have to pay up there for that NDIS, and something has to give here.
Malcolm Roberts, the Treasurer says that we need to have a conversation, a national conversation, and the tax needs to be part of that conversation. Where should we head in terms of the debate about the structural deficit? Because quite clearly, he’s identified the illness, not necessarily the entire cure this evening.
[Malcolm Roberts] Good question. First of all, we need the end, I’ll get into tax in a minute, but we need to end the black armband view of mining. Mining has pulled this country out of a mess for the last two years. And the coal prices were forecast in last budget are around about $60 a tonne. They’re $400 in actual fact, iron ore similarly, very much higher than they were forecast be. If it wasn’t for mining, we’d be well and truly deeper in the brown stuff. Now, tax, we need to make it simple. We need to make it, so that the multinationals automatically pay their tax. They’re not doing it at the moment. The Liberal Party in 1953 put in the Double Taxation Recognition Act, which basically made large foreign multinationals, not pay company tax, that’s absurd. The petroleum resources tax, that Bob Hawke’s Labour Party brought in the ’80s, made sure that the largest tax evader in the world, Chevron, pays not a cent, while they export billions of dollars worth of our natural gas. And we’re the largest gas, we’re the largest exporters of energy in the world. And we get bugger all for it here. We have the highest gas prices, we have the highest-
So do you think a profits tax, a super profits tax or something like that?
[Malcolm Roberts] I think you get back to basics, and you actually tax multinationals on the widgets they make. That’s an interim one. But we’ve gotta have a simpler tax system, bring it back to basics. We’ve got way outta kilter. It’s far too complex. The GST was supposed to-
New mines, new gas projects and so on. But this remains a lucrative transition fuel, does it not?
We have argued consistently for a corporate super profits tax. We have argued consistently for super profits taxes particularly targeted at fossil fuel companies. And I wanna make this point about taxation. In this budget, it was revealed tonight, that the petroleum resource rent tax is gonna bring in $450 million over the forward estimates, less than what we were told it would last year. We are in the middle of a so-called gas boom, and the big gas companies are gonna be paying $450 million bucks less tax along with the other companies. The petroleum resource rent tax targets less tax than what they were forecast to last year. It’s an absolute roar.
So obviously that’s your,
And it needs to be fixed.
that’s your thinking, in terms of where the Treasurer should start this conversation.
He could do that. He could walk away from the quarter of a trillion dollars, the $250 billion in stage-three tax cuts. That’s what they will cost over the next 10 years. Negative gearing, reform capital gains tax reform, which would stop these spiking house prices, which are pricing too many people out of a home. And meaning that at the moment, homes are like an investment class, rather than a human right. There’s so much we could do, and so many levers at Jim Chalmers’ disposal, and he’s basically pulled none of them.
[Malcolm Roberts] I think we might have found something that Nick, and I agree on, because the government is talking about, housing price is a simple matter of supply and demand, right Kieran?
Is is that a first by the way? I think it might be.
[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah, no, no. Nick and I have helped each other-
I’m worried, I’m worried.
[Malcolm Roberts] on quite a few things. Housing prices are a matter of supply and demand. The supply is up to the local governments, and some extent the state governments. Federal government’s got nothing to do with that. The demand, the federal government’s gonna shoot up by increasing immigration, 180,000 net, permanent.
No, now, just to be clear, we don’t agree on that. And I just wanna say about housing, the headline from the government is a million new homes. When you look at the fine print in the budget, it’s 10,000.
We’ve got two and a half minutes left, before we cross over to Paul Murray and his special tonight. Let’s get some final thoughts, overarching thoughts if we can, Jacqui Lambie to you as we wrap up this evening. What would you like to leave our viewers in terms of your assessment? Obviously, you believe that this is really a stepping-stone budget in many respects, and a lot of work to come over six months.
Yeah, I think it is a stepping-stone budget. They’re just dipping their toe in the water at the moment. They’ve got some big decisions to make over the next six months. And-
And is it largely around the NDIS? Is it your view that that’s the role?
I think it’s around everyone, everything. I am just gonna step forward here, and say that they’re giving the GST to the states, because they’re gonna expect those states to start giving some heavy lifting and they’re gonna say, “Hey, we gave you extra GST. You go fix that.” I reckon that’s exactly what they’re doing. It is not going to be enough. Our people are really hurting out there. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better, especially if we do go, we’re already heading into recession. If we hit a recession, we’ve got interest rates going up out there. Houses are losing their value. We’ve got many young kids that invested in them. We’re in dire straits going in, into the next 12 months, and they’re gonna have to make some really tough decisions for that May budget. And you know what, this is what we’re gonna say, “Is Labour made of the steel that it thinks it is?”
Malcolm Roberts, your final assessment as we wrap up?
[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah, they’ve completely missed the major points, A paper presented, I’ll read these figures. A paper presented to Cabinet, calculated the value difference in exporting bauxite, the ore, versus processed aluminium in ’19, $70. Just imagine what these figures would be today, exporting 1 million tonnes of bauxite, the raw material earned $5 million. Processed one step into alumina, earned $27 million, more than five times as much, processed again into aluminium, earned a $125 million, and processed finally into aluminium products, earned $600 million. If they’re fair thinking about manufacturing, they need to fix electricity prices and get on with the tax reform.
Malcolm thank you, and Nick McKim finally to you as we wrap up.
Yeah, sure. Look, I’ll be brief ’cause I know we’re nearly outta time, but in one word, disappointing. People voted for change at the Federal Election this year. They didn’t get much change in the budget tonight. It was pretty bland, pretty disappointing. It’s left an awful lot of people behind, but the top end of town are pretty happy with it.
Greens Treasury spokesman Nick McKim, Malcolm Roberts of One Nation and Jacqui Lambie, great to see you all. Thanks for joining.
Thank you.
Thank you Kieran.
Thank you for your company at home, here on our Sky News.
The biggest madness about Net Zero is that Australia’s emissions are already at… net zero. Our forests and oceans already absorb many times what is produced by humans.
Transcript
Well done, everyone. What an amazing job you’ve done. I’m delighted to announce that the Commonwealth of Australia has reached its net zero target under the United Nations Paris Climate Agreement 30 years early. Well done, everyone. Senator Babet. Well done. I thank Senator Assistant Minister MacAllister for the definitions she used in the Senate chamber during the climate change bill from Article four of the UN Paris Climate Agreement.
Quote Net zero is a balance between human production of emissions and removal of those emissions by environmental sinks. End of quote. Our country has so many forests that Australia already sequesters sinks three times more carbon dioxide than we produce. Worldwide forests and oceans sink three quarters of human production. Under the Government’s own definition, Australia is already at net zero and the rest of the world is not far behind.
But the Paris Agreement definition of net zero ends with these words quote In the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty. The UN Paris Agreement allows development, and that’s great news for our project Iron Boomerang. Yet notice the last part eradicating poverty. If the Albanese government takes measures under its Climate Change Act that increases poverty in Australia, it will be in breach of the UN Paris climate agreement that the Liberal-Nationals signed.
Yet high energy prices from insane energy policies are increasing inflation, destroying wealth, destroying jobs and opportunity, and forcing people into poverty. Our human carbon dioxide production is not breaching the UN’s Paris Agreement. Instead, the destruction of baseload power in this country and worldwide is breaching that agreement and it does not require that action. The Albanese Government cannot pick and choose which elements of the UN Paris Agreement it uses.
One nation will hold this government to the letter of the UN agreement Australia signed, and that is simple. Climate, zealotry and deceit must not push one person into poverty. Not one person, not one, none.
Senator Roberts calls on the Senate to reject the Climate Change Bills 2022 due to the complete lack of cost-benefit analysis.
He says, “Carbon dioxide emissions reduction is the biggest change to Australian lives Parliament has ever considered.”
“Despite the target’s huge impact, absolutely nothing in the Climate Change Bill says how it will be achieved, what the cost to Australia will be or what measurable impact reducing Australia’s carbon dioxide production will have on global temperature.”
“Politicians don’t accept this kind of blank cheque and ignorant attitude to the flow-on effects of legislation in any other policy, and shouldn’t on energy.”
Emissions reduction policies are expected to significantly impact energy, transport and agriculture.
“Grids that have tried to rely on wind and solar to provide their needs have either been left in the dark or have skyrocketing energy prices. Instead of learning from international wind and solar disasters like Texas and Germany, Australian climate alarmists want us to follow their road to ruin.”
“Adding emissions reduction to the National Energy Objectives will compromise the existing objectives of price, quality, safety, reliability and security of supply of energy.”
“A government funded study has already sounded the alarm on the forced and premature uptake of electric vehicles, finding that uptake could increase electricity demand by 30-100% on Australia’s already struggling power grid.”
“Under an emissions target, taxpayer money will be spent telling farmers to lockup their land for carbon dioxide credits, essentially a scam plagued with integrity issues and currently under government review. Australia’s farmers can grow enough to feed and clothe the world, yet won’t be able to under this target.”
Senator Roberts’ submission to the Climate Change Bills inquiry outlines the lack of due diligence and ideological, rather than evidence based, attitudes that have driven climate policy.
“Not a single politician can say what specific measurable impact these emissions reduction policies will have on any aspect of climate or weather.” “Until the true, full costs of an emissions target are given to Australia, this Bill must not pass.”
Malcolm’s Fight
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