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Impacts of Climate Change Policy Unknown

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The cost of living is skyrocketing, energy prices are going up and the economy is getting worse.

All of these things are being fuelled by the insane net-zero climate policies both sides of government have pursued over decades.

Despite this, an independent auditor has found that the responsible department can’t actually measure how much these economy-destroying policies is affecting anything, except your wallet.

With no measurements or KPIs in place, we’re giving a blank cheque to policies that could well be doing absolutely nothing or making the country worse.

It’s time we abandon the ridiculous net-zero completely. Australians have suffered enough.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today. The Australian National Audit Office report by the title Governance of climate change commitments found that you are ‘unable to demonstrate the extent to which specific Australian government policies and programs have contributed or are expected to contribute towards overall emissions reduction’—’emissions’ meaning carbon dioxide from human activity. Last estimates, you said you disagreed with that, yet you agreed with all five recommendations from the auditor, didn’t you?  

Ms Geiger: Yes, we did agree with all the recommendations in the report.  

Senator ROBERTS: The Audit Office responded to you, disagreeing, and said: … DCCEEW does not have a single, structured plan or strategy that links activities being undertaken to the achievement of emissions reduction targets … … As outlined at paragraph 2.26, DCCEEW’s monitoring of the progress of climate- and energy-related work does not include an indication of what contribution measures will make towards emissions reduction targets. Because of this, DCCEEW is unable to demonstrate the impact of its work on climate change targets, as set out at paragraph 2.28 and in Recommendation no.1. That’s the end of the ANAO statement. Do you still maintain that you can demonstrate the specific, quantifiable effects your policies have had on the reduction of carbon dioxide from human activity, despite what the Audit Office said?  

Ms Geiger: We have a range of ways that we measure the impacts of our different climate change initiatives towards the emissions targets. Ms Rowley might be able to talk through the specifics that balance both the forward projections and the contributions that particular initiatives might make to our targets, as well as annual updates of how our emissions are tracking.  

Ms Rowley: As we discussed at the hearing in February, we do have a range of ways that the government tracks the progress towards its emissions reduction targets and quantifies the impact of its most important emissions reduction policies and measures. In our February hearing, I talked you through some of the specific findings from our 2023 emissions projections report, which is one of the key ways that we track progress towards our target, and explained—  

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me; you’re tracking progress in implementation with a projections report?  

Ms Rowley: We track both: progress to date in our National inventory report, which is published every year and reports on Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from all sources across the economy—that’s a backwards look; and our emissions projections, which are based on a range of assumptions looking forward, look at what current policies deliver in terms of our expected emissions for the future, and they run out to 2035.  

Senator ROBERTS: Just for clarification: are they actual impacts of the reduction of carbon dioxide from human activity or just reductions in carbon dioxide from human activity?  

Ms Rowley: It covers all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide. The projections include detail of the projected impact of some of our major emissions reduction policies and measures.  

Senator ROBERTS: That doesn’t answer the question. What would be the impact of those projected decreases, and what is the impact of the reductions to date? Do we see any difference in temperature? Do we see any difference in rainfall, snowfall, storm severity, frequency, duration, droughts, floods, sea levels? What are the specific impacts? 

Ms Rowley: If you’re talking about the impact of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions on the global climate, obviously the global climate and the observed impacts of climate change are a function of Australia and all other countries’ greenhouse gas emissions. The key reports that we refer to in our work and draw on are things like the IPCC assessment reports, as well as work done domestically by groups like CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. That looks at the impacts of climate change to date, which, as I said, are the cumulative effect of global greenhouse gas emissions. It is, I think, rather more difficult to attribute any single change in the tonnes of emissions from Australia to specific changes in the global climate, not least because it is a cumulative effect. But it is also very important to note that the cumulative effect of climate change is reflective of global greenhouse gas emissions and that, with the reduction in the global greenhouse gas emissions, the projected impacts—and, over time, the observed impacts—of climate change will be less, and Australia is contributing to that as part of the global action on climate change.  

Senator ROBERTS: It sounds like the ANAO was right. The Australian National Audit Office was absolutely correct. You cannot measure the impact of what you’re doing, and you’re not.  

Ms Rowley: I think that the ANAO was particularly interested in drawing connections between Australia’s policies and measures and Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. And, as I said, our emissions reports—both backward looking, through the inventory, and forward looking, through the projections—do seek to quantify the impact of policies and measures on Australia’s emissions. As I said, that’s just one of many things that we do to track the implementation and progress. Specific policies and measures, when they’re out for consultation, include analysis of the likely impacts on greenhouse gas emissions. For example, recent consultations on the new vehicle efficiency standard included specific analysis of the likely impact on greenhouse gas emissions.  

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me; that’s not what I’m after. We’ve already discussed that you can project reductions in carbon dioxide, but you can’t tell me what the impact will be. You claim you can. Can you please provide on notice the specific quantifiable effect of each of your policies, since you claim you have that? So let’s have that, please. Can you provide it on notice?  

Ms Rowley: I think perhaps you’re making a different point to the ANAO’s. The ANAO was interested on the impact on Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions from our policies and measures. You’re asking about the impact of Australia’s mitigation action on global climate change. Is that correct?  

Senator ROBERTS: No; I’m asking about what the impact is on climate factors like temperature, snowfall, rainfall, drought severity, frequency and duration. We have been told the world is coming to an end—that these things are going to happen. I would like to know the impact of your specific reductions on those climate factors.  

Ms Rowley: As I said, those are intermediated through global emissions and global action.  

Senator ROBERTS: So you can’t provide it?  

Ms Rowley: We can certainly provide, as we have in the past, information about both the global outlook and the impact of global reductions in emissions.  

Senator ROBERTS: No-one anywhere in the world, Ms Rowley, has provided the specific quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on any climate factor—no-one ever.  

Ms Rowley: Senator, I’m not sure that that’s correct.  

Senator ROBERTS: If you can prove me wrong, I would love to have that. If you can take that on notice, that would be great—the specific effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on climate factors, such as air temperature, troposphere temperatures, stratosphere temperature, heat content of the air, heat content of the ocean, heat exchange and storm frequency, severity and duration. You pick them.  

Ms Geiger: We accept the international science on the impact of greenhouse gases on climate change.  

Senator ROBERTS: I know you do. That’s what bothers me.  

Ms Geiger: We can provide on notice further background on that. But the premise is that we accept—  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not interested in further background; I’m interested in hard specific numbers that should be and must be the basis of any policy that is going to gut our energy sector. The specific quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on any climate factor is what I want to see. That’s what I want to see. I’m happy for you to take it on notice. Let’s move on to the freedom of information request that I put in. The request was LEX76280 and was in relation to the Powering Australia Tracker. You redacted a single measure on page six of that document. What’s that measure, please? 

Ms Geiger: I understand that the freedom of information request was about the tracker. My colleague Dr Mitchell might have that information to hand.  

Senator ROBERTS: The one that was redacted on page six.  

Dr Mitchell: We have provided the response that explains why that line was redacted in more detail. It said that it’s redacted on the basis of cabinet in confidence.  

Senator ROBERTS: Really? Can you take on notice to provide a table with all of the policies in the Powering Australia Tracker, detailing the cost of each of them by year over the past three years and their budget over the forwards?  

Ms Geiger: We can take that on notice.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Let’s move to fuel security. We covered the minimum stock holding obligations for petrol, diesel and jet fuel at some length last Senate estimates. You gave to me on notice, in SQ24000046, that the refineries may also report crude oil and unfinished stock as liquid fuel. Do you have a breakdown of how much of the reported stock holding is actually finished liquid fuel versus crude oil—not a projected conversion of existing crude into future petrol, diesel or jet fuel, but the actual quantities of the four measures, as it exists now?  

Mrs Svarcas: Just so I’m really clear, for the MSO obligation, you’re asking how much of the crude oil do we count as petrol, jet fuel and diesel?  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. Can you also provide to me the actual amount, right now, of crude oil as it is, jet fuel as it is, petrol as it is and diesel as it is, and not projected conversions of crude oil into those things?  

Mrs Svarcas: I will have to take on notice the projected for crude oil into those things. The MSO does allow, under the reporting obligations, for an entity to effectively say they’ve got a bucket of crude oil, and they will be converting X amount of it through their normal operations—and how much of that is going to be diesel, how much of that is going to be jet fuel et cetera. I would have to take on notice how much of the crude is crude, if you will, and how much is fuel.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. That’d be good. You explained previously how there’s the domestic minimum stockholding obligation for petrol, diesel and jet fuel put in place by the government then there’s the International Energy Agency agreement for 90 days of crude oil. Last estimates, you told me we were at 55 International Energy Agency days of crude oil. What’s the latest figure for that, and is all of that stock in Australia’s exclusive economic zone here?  

Mrs Svarcas: The actual figure of that today—the last report was from March 2024—is 53 days and that figure captures all of the things. It might be helpful if I describe what’s captured in that. It’s crude oil as crude oil. It’s diesel, petrol and jet fuel. It also includes other refined products. For example, the oil that you would put into your car is included under the definition provided to us by the IEA. It’s those stocks that are on land in Australia and in our domestic waters. But, importantly, the difference between the IEA days and the MSO calculation is that it does not include the product that’s in our EEZ; it’s just the product that’s in Australian waters or physically in Australia.  

Senator ROBERTS: So is there any double counting then?  

Mrs Svarcas: No, there’s no double counting. There’s a difference between a vessel that is in Australian waters—how it’s included in the IEA days—and stock that is in the EEZ that is counted in the MSO days. It might also be useful, if you’ll indulge me, to explain the difference between the measures that we have in place so that you can get an idea of what we use it for. As I described, the IEA days are one single calculation of all of the fuel and fuel products as defined by the IEA. We also have our consumption cover days. They’re the days that we report every month publicly, and you’ll find those on our website. They are a measure of how long the stock will last. So they give us a really good indication of what we’ve got every month, and how long, based on average consumption, that will last. That’s all publicly available. Then we also have the MSO, which is slightly different, and the purpose of that measure is to set that minimum stockholding obligation to give us the insurance policy of making sure, from our perspective, how much fuel, liquid fuels and things we should have in Australia should there be a market disruption. So the purpose of each of those reportings is slightly different, which is why what goes into them—what we count and how we count them—is also slightly different, because they have different purposes.  

Senator ROBERTS: I look forward to the numbers that you’re going to give me. Our strategic reserve—  

CHAIR: If you’ve finished that line of questioning, we will need to rotate. 

Senator ROBERTS: I’ve just one more question on strategic reserve. You told me at last Senate estimates that Australia has sold all of the oil reserves in the United States’ strategic reserve?  

Mrs Svarcas: That is correct.  

Senator ROBERTS: That was 1.7 million barrels—nearly two years ago—in June 2022. That hasn’t been reported anywhere, as I understand it.  

Mrs Svarcas: No, I believe it was publicly reported. I’ll be happy to table that report.  

Senator ROBERTS: Did anyone at the department announce that the 1.7 million barrels had been sold?  

Mrs Svarcas: Like I said, I believe it was. I’m happy to be corrected if my evidence is wrong but I do believe it was made public at the time.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. 

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Audit the election software

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I asked the AEC about the new software they used for counting votes. Concerns have been raised about previous AEC software by cryptologists and the National Audit Office.

The AEC claims to have written new software that fixes all of these problems, but they won’t tell us who audited it and what the results were. An open and transparent audit is absolutely necessary to ensure there is 100% confidence in our elections.

Transcript

Thank you, Miss Jay.

Thanks Senator Sullivan, Senator Roberts.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. And thank you for appearing today. My questions apart from the first and third, fairly brief. So the first one, in reference to testimony at the last estimates, and I’ve I’ve got copies of your questions on that, responses to your questions and that is. The AEC bought but did not use the Scytl software. Rather you write your own. To write your own election software is a really impressive feat. We’ve been talking to people, they’re very impressed. May I ask how many staff are on the development team please?

I’d have to take that on notice.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. What was the total cost of doing that?

I’d have to take that on notice.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. What testing did you use before deployment now I’d imagine some kind of parallel running or some form of a dry run.

Well, in fact, we did multiple forms of testing and assurance Senator, as I’m sure you would as I’m sure you’d be aware. And look Senator, to be abundantly helpful here, we’re happy to provide you a more detailed personal briefing on this. I’m happy to talk to you about it. It is a complex process. As you’re aware, we’ve been using our audit, our checked software, easy CAAT for a number of years and we’ve redeveloped that that’s effectively what we deployed as part of the 2016 solution. As I think we said last time, the Siedel solution, we got Seidel on board as really as a business assurance process to make sure that we had software that was going to work at 12 week period to deliver it. The software we’re using has been checked, double-checked and assured. And not only that, the important point to note it’s totally in line with the existing legislation and all of the data that we then generate from that software is put online and the results are then replicated by a number of psephologists and political science departments who use that data to replicate the count. And it exactly matches the outcome of their own. So there’s a range of different ways of assuring that this software is fit for purpose.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, thank you. Still part of the first question. Were any of the staff involved doctorate or masters degree qualified in a suitable discipline such as mathematics or cryptology?

Senator I’d have to take that on notice.

[Malcolm Roberts] Could we get their names please? When you provide it a notice?

No.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. And how long did it take?

We had for the 2016 process we had that 12 week periods in Israel, as I’ve said previously.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah. And can you provide their qualifications?

Senator again, if you can help me here on letting me know where you’re trying to head, maybe I can provide some more fulsome answers.

[Malcolm Roberts] Perhaps we can, we can go into that in the briefing. I’d love to take you up on that. So did your bespoke solution use any code from Scytl and if so, what percentage?

It did not.

[Malcolm Roberts] None at all. Great. Your software, you intimated has been audited in accordance with standards published by the National Association of Testing Authorities, NADA. That certification does not specify a standard for the auditing of election software. It’s more of a general process for an audit to follow, as I understand it. Having the audit is not a guarantee that your software works within acceptable accuracy levels. Although these issues may come out in an audit who conducted the audit and how much did it cost and what was the result?

Senator as I’ve just said, if you can help me here by telling me where you’re trying to head with this process I would get some of these questions. If somehow the results of this were somehow secret or behind closed doors. We use a piece of software that’s been tested and assured on multiple occasions. The same time, all of the data that this software produces is then publicly published on our virtual teller even on our website, which on election day, as one of the most used pages in Australia, that data is then used by a variety of psephologists and computer and political science experts to replicate those results. It’s intensely public. If you’re trying to indicate that there’s some sort of issue, I just don’t understand why you’d be doing that when there’s been no evidence of that at all.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, we were just concerned about the auditing. That’s all. Because we got some answers from the, I think it was a Nao that didn’t give us the assurance. So let’s go onto some of the physical things then of the 511 polling places in the last election. How many of those had computers or other devices that communicated with the AEC computer system or were capable of doing so?

Senator I’m Jeff Pope, deputy electoral commissioner. I’m not sure what you’re referring to with 511 polling places we had nearly 8,000.

[Malcolm Roberts] Could that be state?

Perhaps you might be referring to–

[Malcolm Roberts] While it is not a mandatory requirement for pre-poll voting centres at the 2019 federal election. 115 of the 511 people voting centres. So pre-poll, sorry, pre-poll. My mistake.

[Man] Right.

[Malcolm Roberts] Had me worried there.

You had me worried.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, just how many have got a physical connection? How many had a physical connection?

For what purpose, Senator?

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, I’m going to go into that in the next few questions.

Many in terms of the role. And–

There are, we have electronic certified lists in every I think in every one of those pre-poll centres last event where citizens names and marked off the roll.

[Malcolm Roberts] No, it’s beyond that. I note from your answer on questions on notice F-O six five on polling place security, that those electronic devices were protected by monitored back to base alarm in only 115 of the 511 polling places. Were any other measures in place to protect the cyber integrity of those devices during the election period? For example were they air gaped, were they turned off at night, was there IP traffic monitoring for the period when they should have been none because they were turned off? That’s what we’re after.

I think all of your thoughts–

[Malcolm Roberts] You think?–

So we’ll take it on notice. But again, we’ve had no issue with any breach of our software or our hardware, with respect to delivery of the election–

At all, and no indicator of any breach and our handling of all of that data. And the physical equipment was in line with relevant Commonwealth guidelines and regulations and the risk assessment that we undertook.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. I’m just doing my job on behalf of my constituents.

I get it Senator. And I’m doing my job.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yes.

On also defending one of the world’s best and most transparent electoral systems.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well I’m not attacking it. I’m just making sure that–

Fantastic. And so we’re both doing our jobs in terms of making sure that citizens have the information they need to form their judgements.

[Malcolm Roberts] Correct. I’ve only got three questions to go. In your response to questions on notice F-0 six eight, you make the comment, ” All preferences and all Senate ballot papers are reviewed by at least one person at the scanning side.” Does that mean that they compare the scanned ballot with the paper ballot to ensure accuracy? Because that’s the impression your answer gives. Do they compare the actual scanned ballot with the paper ballot?

Senator the process is that a data is both manually entered and scanned and then that’s matched with the automated process–

[Malcolm Roberts] All the ballot papers are manually entered?

Manually entered but all paper is scanned when it first arrives. Then from that image which is an image that data is then entered. And then the scan, the data from the scan is then compared with that to make sure that they match. Where they don’t match, we undertake further processes.

[Malcolm Roberts] Could you explain that in terms of, we have a physical paper ballot that is scanned in–

[Man] Correct.

[Malcolm Roberts] And then–

And then it captures an image.

[Malcolm Roberts] Right. And then what is compared with that image?

That image is then presented to the Data Entry Operator who enters the data from that image–

[Malcolm Roberts] From the image–

Right.

[Malcolm Roberts] So he or she enters it physically.

Correct.

[Malcolm Roberts] So that’s the manual part.

That’s the manual part, then at the same time the data capture process as part of capturing the image is then compared with that manual process. Where that matches, that’s taken to be an accurate match. And that’s included in the count. Where it doesn’t match, we undertake further processes.

[Malcolm Roberts] So that last estimates in October, I asked what percentage of computer records that checked back against the paper record. And you took that on notice, your lengthy answer failed to provide a figure. Is that because it’s a hundred percent?

Which was the question Senator?

[Malcolm Roberts] I asked what percentage of computer records are checked back against the paper record? And you took that a notice, your lengthy answer, which is I think F-068. Hang on, it might be zero eight four. Sorry, zero eight, four. So, as I was saying your lengthy answer failed to provide a figure. Counting ballots is a quantitative exercise. So everything comes down to figures. What percentage of electronic voting cards are compared back to the ballot paper and what is the variance?

I wonder whether we’re talking about different things here, Senator. The process that I’ve just been through demonstrates that every single paper.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you.

Yep.

[Malcolm Roberts] Last question . On this topic, anyway. Has the AEC ever run a test batch of a few thousand ballot papers through your system then run those same ballots through a second time and compared the result? Surely any variance between these two runs would give you a figure for system accuracy.

Again, Senator I’d rely on what I’ve just said before that the process that we’re running involves a full manual entry of every single ballot paper compared then to the scanning, capture of the scanned data. So we’re doing that in any case.

[Malcolm Roberts] That that’s what I thought. Okay. Just a final question. Just to lose question. I was thinking as, the senators were asking questions. Voters tell us quite often that they’re then not in favour of being assaulted by a number of how to vote cards distributors being volunteers, distributing how to vote cards when they’re entering a polling booth and some of the premises managers getting to have a bit of strife with it too. I don’t know. I haven’t read the act that covers this, but would there be any possibility or any consideration given to putting the, how to vote cards in the booth or is that fundamentally flawed?

Absolutely not Senator yet. I know what you’re saying that occasionally people do so that. What I’d say in defensive 99.9% of all of the party workers is most people strive to do the right thing.

[Man] Yeah.

We have a few over-excited individuals that really like to get those how to vote cards in the hands of voters. And that can cause some offence but most people do the right thing. We would never put a how to votes in the polling place, because then get confused and think we’re endorsing a particular process and it creates grief.

[Malcolm Roberts] What about if everyone was in there? Every party.

Same thing people then get confused and I’d be absolutely–

[Malcolm Roberts] That’s a fair comment. So if someone’s handing it they can stop them and ask questions about it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Senator Roberts.

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