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The Climate Alphabet Soup

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There are numerous government organisations dedicated to implementing United Nations climate policies, making life increasingly harder for Australians. It’s hard to keep track of them all. One such organisation is the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). It incurs $537 million in annual expenses and has $7.3 billion of taxpayers money tied up in assets. The wage bill for their top 15 employees is $7.4 million a year.

Ian Learmonth, featured in this video and head of the CEFC, received a $614,000 bonus last year, taking his total remuneration for the year to $1 million dollars or 1.7 times the salary of the Prime Minister.

It’s no surprise he didn’t want to disclose this when I asked.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: There’s an alphabet soup of agencies and government departments involved in the energy transition. As simply and as specifically as possible, what do you do at the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, what are your basic accountabilities and what are the unique qualities you bring?

Mr Learmonth: The object of the CEFC, as per the act, is to facilitate the flows of capital funds into the clean energy sector and to deliver on the government’s climate targets. We’re using a significant amount of capital deployed out there in the Australian economy, effectively, to decarbonise Australia. That’s really what we’re doing. We have 165 people, most of whom are very skilled at going out into the marketplace and finding places that we can use this catalytic capital to drive emissions reduction.

Senator ROBERTS: What is the total wage bill for all employees? Do you have any casuals and contractors or are they all full-time permanents?

Mr Learmonth: We just tabled our annual report that has all that information in there. If you’d like any further details that aren’t obvious or available in the annual report, I’m very happy to take that on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: There have been no changes since the annual report was released?

Mr Learmonth: No.

Senator ROBERTS: What is the total budget for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, including any grants or programs you administer?

Mr Learmonth: Do you mean over the forward estimates? What time period?

Senator ROBERTS: This current financial year and if you want to bring it into the forward estimates, that would be handy, too.

Mr Learmonth: Once again, I will take that on notice. It’s probably best that we do it that way. My CFO might be able to dig that number up for you. We’ve certainly got what’s in the budget papers.

Senator ROBERTS: Just getting in the chairperson’s good books, last question: what is the total salary package of everyone at the desk here who is attending right now?

Mr Learmonth: Once again, it is in the annual report. Certainly, Andrew and I are explicitly there on page 215 of the annual report. If you’d like any further information about that, we can follow up.

Senator ROBERTS: Why the reluctance not to share it?

Mr Learmonth: It’s there and there’s a whole raft of different short-term incentives.

Senator ROBERTS: If it doesn’t meet our needs, we can send a letter to you and get the details? Is that right?

Mr Learmonth: I would be positioning it the other way. If there’s anything that’s not in that public document around the remuneration of the CFO and myself, we could provide it to you on notice.

2023-24 Annual ReportDownload

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Study Reveals Carbon Credits are a Scam!

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A reputable study says that 70-80% of carbon credits “are devoid of integrity”. This is a market that is costing Australia roughly $5.5 billion based on carbon credit units that even the Greens agree is a scam. This is driving up prices even higher in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

It’s time to stop the corruption and cancel these ridiculous net-zero policies.

Transcript

Carbon dioxide credits are a scam and an absolute fraud, and the Greens agree with One Nation on this. Yes, you heard that correctly. It’s difficult to believe. Australians may wonder what we agree on Granted, the Greens and One Nation have come to the same conclusion for very different reasons. Nonetheless, we share the conclusion that carbon dioxide credits are a scam. They are rife with opportunities for fraud. 

The Clean Energy Regulator has issued 140 million carbon dioxide credits. At the current spot price of $35 each, this represents a racket potentially worth $4.9 billion. That’s expected to grow by 20 million credits, or $700 million, this year alone, making it $5.6 million. 

The Greens and One Nation aren’t the only ones to criticise Australian carbon credit units, or ACCUs. In 2022 Professor Andrew Macintosh, environmental law expert at the Australian National University, and his colleagues published a series of papers absolutely tearing apart the ACCU system. Keep in mind that this is a $5.5 billion market that’s being fabricated, in part to give the UN income, ultimately. As usual, they enlist parasites who benefit while pushing UN policy for them. For example, the major banks. Rothschild Australia, the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch had on their advisory boards in this country at the time the CSIRO chief executive, Dr Megan Clark—a conflict of interest? 

Back to the study of ACCU carbon dioxide credits. The study was done under Professor Andrew Macintosh, who said: 

The available data suggests 70 to 80 per cent of the ACCUs issued to … projects are devoid of integrity … 

So 20 to 30 per cent may have some integrity. Remember, this is a $5.5 billion market. Here’s another quote: 

What is occurring is a fraud on the environment … 

‘A fraud on the environment’, I say to the Greens. This is what Dr Macintosh said: 

What is occurring is a fraud on the environment, a fraud on taxpayers— 

Australian taxpayers— 

and a fraud on unwitting private buyers of ACCUs … 

In response to these revelations, the government commissioned what they call the Chubb review. The government should just have been honest and called it what it really was: a whitewash, a distortion and misinformation. Actually, the Chubb review is disinformation. In the past, when Professor Chubb has been requested to provide empirical scientific data within a logical scientific point backing up claims of climate change due to human carbon dioxide, he has repeatedly failed to produce it. He has never produced it, yet he’s often advocated for it. He’s part of the climate fraud industry and has received a lot of money to push climate fraud. He has been heavily rewarded by both Liberal-National and Labor Party governments. The Chubb review, in this case, addressed nothing of substance and provided no evidence for its claims that problems have been fixed, yet the government held the report up as proof that everything’s fine. As Professor Macintosh and his colleagues outlined in their response to the Chubb review, it spent less than six pages discussing the ACCU rules, which relate to a $5.5 billion market. They say: 

The– 

Chubb— 

report does not contain references to the evidence relied upon to reach its conclusions … 

I’ll say that again: 

The– 

Chubb— 

report does not contain references to the evidence relied upon to reach its conclusions, and includes very little analysis to support its findings. And importantly, the panel does not address key questions around the integrity of the scheme’s rules. 

What use was that? This is ‘a fraud on the environment, a fraud on taxpayers and a fraud on unwitting private buyers of ACCUs’. Here is another quote: 

Bewilderingly— 

I don’t find it bewildering; it’s straightforward, as I’ve been watching this scam unfold for years– 

in its assessment of the methods, the panel does not refer to the findings of a review it commissioned from the Australian Academy of Science … The academy … found numerous flaws in the methods and the associated governance processes. 

There were ‘numerous flaws in the methods and the associated governance processes’. This is so typical of this government. It is so typical of the Liberals, the Nationals and Labor, pushing the climate fraud. Here is another quote: 

The— 

Chubb— 

review … acknowledged the scientific evidence criticising the carbon credit scheme, but says “it was also provided with evidence to the contrary”. Yet it did not disclose what that evidence was or what it relates to. The public is simply expected to trust that the evidence exists. 

Maybe the dog ate the evidence for breakfast. This is what the government says is assurance and integrity for taxpayer money. 

While the Greens, Professor Macintosh and I may agree on the integrity issues with carbon dioxide credits, here’s where I leave them behind: there is no reason to reduce our output of carbon dioxide or trade credits for it. Carbon dioxide credits can never have integrity because they are a scam designed to transfer wealth from the pockets of everyday Australians and their families and small businesses to the bank accounts of billionaire net zero scam artists and parasitic multinationals sucking on the financial payout from climate fraud and associated financial scams. I note some of these points. I won’t go into them in detail. The government that introduced the renewable energy target, a scam, and the national electricity market that is really a national electricity racket—it’s not a market; it’s a bureaucratic controlled entity—stole farmers’ property rights across the country so that they could comply with the UN’s Kyoto protocol. They put in place the first policy—not legislation—advocating for a carbon dioxide tax. It wasn’t Julia Gillard. It was the Howard government that did all these things. The Howard government laid the foundation for all of this. It went around the Constitution to steal farmers’ property rights around the country. Then, six years after being booted from office and after the Liberals and Nationals in the Howard government told us that it was all based on science, John Howard, in a major lecture to sceptic think tank in Londan said that on the topic of climate science, he was agnostic. He didn’t have the science, and now our electricity sector has been crippled because of the renewable energy target, the national electricity market and an alphabet soup of bureaucratic agencies. 

There has never been—there never is—any empirical scientific data and logical scientific points that human carbon dioxide is warming the planet. There is not any from the CSIRO—I’ve done freedom of information requests and held them accountable in the Senate—nor from their publications ever. There is not any from the Bureau of Meteorology. It’s the same deal. There is not any from the United Nations. It’s the same deal. There is also no policy basis. There is no documented effect per unit of human carbon dioxide on climate factors such as air temperature, rainfall, heat waves, drought severity and frequency or storm severity, frequency and duration—none at all. There is no basis for the policy on which the carbon dioxide credits are based. There’s been no cost benefit analysis. There’s been no business case. Ross Garnaut, who produced a report for the Rudd-Gillard government, said in his report on the science that there basically was no science and he was going on the consensus. Yet he is parasitically sucking on solar and wind subsidies, driving up electricity prices and putting Australians into poverty. Remember, the money that goes to the extra costs of electricity in this country is a highly regressive tax on the poor in our country. 

In 2009 and 2020 we had two global experiments showing that human carbon dioxide has no effect on carbon dioxide levels in the air. We had a major downturn with the global financial crisis in 2008. We then had a recession in 2009. COVID hit us. It arrived on our shores—it didn’t really hit us; the government hit us—in 2020, and then 2020 was almost a depression because of the restrictions and lockdowns. In both years, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued rising unabated. Yet we’ve been told for decades now that by cutting back on human production of carbon dioxide we would see the levels in the atmosphere start decreasing and go down. We had a major reduction in industrial activity and a severe recession in 2009 and 2020. The production of carbon dioxide from human use of hydrocarbons, coal, oil and natural gas decreased dramatically, yet nothing happened. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere kept increasing. 

I asked the CSIRO why. They said that there is an inflection. I asked them for the details of that inflection, to characterise it statistically. They failed to do it. I asked the Bureau of Meteorology, and they said, ‘Senator Roberts, it would take years for that to come through.’ Here is the CSIRO saying that we’ve already seen it and the Bureau of Meteorology saying that we will see it eventually, but it will take a long while to come. You can’t make this stuff up! What the experiments in 2009 and 2020 showed is that the production of carbon dioxide from human activity will not affect the level of carbon dioxide in the air. Once you understand Henry’s law—the quantities of carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean are 50 to 70 times more than the entire atmospheric carbon dioxide—then you start to understand why that’s the case. But not content with climate science fraud, the CSIRO is perpetrating gen cost, which is energy fraud based on bogus assumptions that have been completely debunked. Aidan Morrison has done a marvellous job; others have done a marvellous job. 

There’s no basis for this scam, this fraud, but let’s return to the fraud. A report in the 2010s said Europol found 95 per cent of carbon dioxide trading credits were suspicious. That’s easy to believe because there’s no physical basis to the measurement of reductions to carbon dioxide produced. They’re all projections. They’re all based on guesses. They’re formulae based on estimations. They were never quantified and are still not quantified. China is producing record quantities of carbon dioxide, and so are Russia, Brazil, the United States and the European Union—Australia are a small player—yet temperatures are flat and have been flat since 1995. That’s almost 30 years of flat temperatures. I urge senators to establish this inquiry so that we can get to the bottom of how taxpayer money is being fraudulently abused. 

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Government Will Take Power from YOUR Solar Panels and EV

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For years, the Government has subsidised rooftop solar and, more recently, wall batteries. This isn’t so you can have cheap power, it’s so they can have YOUR cheap power.

Half of Australia’s solar energy is generated from rooftop systems. During the morning and evening peak hours, when the sun isn’t shining and wind energy reduces by 90%, the government will take the charge from your wall battery and EV to keep the grid going. This is called “grid connectivity”. Under net zero policies, you will receive only as much electricity as the officials in Canberra decide you can have.

One Nation will end the net zero scam, build new high efficiency coal plants and restore wealth and prosperity to Australia.

Transcript

I thank Senator Van for this matter of public importance. Without criticising the science, cost and impracticability of net zero, which I did last night and will do again tomorrow, it’s certainly possible to talk about wasted capacity in the electricity sector. The ad hoc stance towards solar power in Australia has meant that a lot of people have fitted solar panels without battery storage. This is a distortion in the market as a result of government interference—subsidising solar panels early on while only subsidising wall batteries much later. In fact, the distortion in the energy market as a result of government interference is exactly why energy prices in Australia are out of control. In the most energy rich country in the world we should have the cheapest retail electricity in the world; it should not be amongst the dearest. 

Remember, though, that One Nation is the party of free enterprise. If an Australian homeowner, body corporate or business wants to spend their own money to install solar power, connect it to a battery and then use that investment to start trading in electricity, all power to you. In fact, homeowners organising themselves to direct the output of their solar panels into community batteries is a way of getting into the energy business.  

The government promised community batteries, and I know it has so far funded 370. Only one of the 370 grants went to a community organisation. The other 369 were to either government departments or energy companies. Why are we giving grants to energy companies to build big batteries when the proceeds of those big batteries will be sold back to the grid? Can’t they finance themselves? The Albanese government are handing out taxpayers’ money to their big business mates at a time that everyday Australians need the money for themselves.  

Electric vehicles are another area where energy trading could be an option. Modern EVs use a battery which can hold 100 kilowatt hours of electricity. If charged from the owner’s own solar panels during the day, selling that electricity into the grid during peak hour will help stave off blackouts. Instead, all of these measures fracture energy generation and make the task of maintaining the reliability of the grid harder and more expensive.  

There is a better solution. Modern clean-coal technology allows for the retrofitting of a device which captures all of the gas coming out of a coal fired plant and converts the gas into useful products like fertiliser, AdBlue and ethanol. In the language of the woke, that means zero emissions. This process costs less than $100 million per power station and works best using sea water. Instead of spending more than $1 trillion and up to $2 trillion to simply replace our electricity generation and convert to electrification, clean coal will achieve the same objective for a few hundred million dollars. Clean coal is the real wasted resource in the Australian energy market. Clean coal will reduce the cost of living under Labor. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Hughes): The time for the discussion has expired.  

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BOM’s Climate Forecast Failure

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The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has consistently issued weather forecasts that align with their promotion of the climate change scam, which appears independent of likely weather outcomes.

In 2023, BOM came unstuck when they spent the year forecasting a hotter and drier summer, prompting farmers to reduce their cattle numbers and alter planting schedules. What actually occurred was a wet and cool summer. This inaccurate forecast by the BOM resulted in significant financial losses for farmers and graziers, and rural provider Elders saw a $300 million drop in their share price when earnings were announced last month.

Despite this, BOM and other media outlets claim that their forecasts were accurate and that Elders’ earnings reflected other issues as well.

Supporting Research

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/outlooks/archive.shtml

EYCI Report | Meat & Livestock Australia (mla.com.au)

Archive – Climate outlook maps (bom.gov.au)

Read the Transcript HERE

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you to the bureau for appearing today. I’ve handed out some documents for circulation. They’re copies of BOM forecasts versus actual. I think you’ll be familiar with them, for sure. That’s a contradiction in terms, ‘think’ and ‘for sure’. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be familiar with them.

On 19 September 2023 the Bureau of Meteorology’s weather forecast read, ‘Warmer and dryer conditions would be more likely over spring and summer,’ linking the Indian Ocean Dipole with El Nino using the words, ‘The last time this occurred was 2015,’ which was a very dry year, especially in Queensland. The bush listened to that, and a lot of other people did too—investors as well.

On 30 November the Bureau of Meteorology predicted ‘a high chance of warmer than usual days and nights across Australia, below average rainfall likely for much of the tropics’. The actual weather: northern Queensland was flooded in December—big floods—by Tropical Cyclone Jasper; inland Queensland was flooded in January by Tropical Cyclone Kirrily; South-East Queensland was flooded in December and January.

I’ve circulated your entire forecast for 2023 split into five periods. Each period forecast, except one, was for drier weather than occurred. One was about right. None predicted more rain than occurred, much less than I would have hoped. My question is simple: is your weather model fundamentally flawed?

Dr Johnson: No, Senator, it’s not.

Senator ROBERTS: It’s costing nearly $1 billion to upgrade your computer system, the ROBUST Program as it’s called. Is that still the cost, and can you provide an itemisation? It appears a ridiculous amount of money.

Dr Johnson: Firstly, as I’ve answered to senators in this chamber over many years, the costs associated with the ROBUST Program are cabinet in confidence; they’re not for publication. As I also answered—I think it was at the previous hearing or perhaps the one before—in response to a question from Senator Pocock, the upgrade of the Australis computer system is not part of the ROBUST Program; it is a separate program of work.

Senator ROBERTS:Could you explain the Australis versus the ROBUST, and which one is—

Dr Johnson: ROBUST is a complex program to upgrade the bureau’s ICT and observing systems, fundamental ICT—

Senator ROBERTS:What’s ICT?

Dr Johnson: Information and communications technology.

Senator ROBERTS:Thank you.

Dr Johnson: It upgrades our underlying information and communications technology infrastructure, our observing networks—all sorts of things.

Senator ROBERTS:And recording devices?

Dr Johnson: I’ll get to that in a second. That includes radars, automatic weather stations, automatic balloon launchers—all sorts of things that observe the environment—as well as our underpinning technology infrastructure.

The ROBUST Program, again, has three dimensions. It has a security dimension—in other words, investment to improve the security of the bureau’s systems from threats from our country’s adversaries. There’s stability. Prior to the investment in ROBUST, many of the bureau’s systems were very old, many decades old, and we were experiencing challenges in keeping them stable and operational. And then there’s resilience so that, in the event of an outage, the capacity of the bureau to respond and have our systems back online is improved. So there are three dimensions to ROBUST: security, stability and resilience.

There is a supercomputer dimension to ROBUST, which is a second supercomputer, a disaster recovery machine. Prior to ROBUST, our disaster recovery functions were executed within a single machine in a single place. The arrangements going forward will be different. I’d rather not disclose those in detail, for security reasons, but the ROBUST program funded a second supercomputer for disaster recovery purposes. That is a different machine to the Australis machine, which has often been asked about in Senator Pocock’s questions. That was a separate program to Robust, Senator. You’re conflating two bits of technology uplift in two separate programs.

Senator ROBERTS:The total cost is a billion dollars for both?

Dr Johnson: No. As I said, I’m not going to speak about the cost of ROBUST. The cost of the Australis upgrade is roughly, I think, $44 million—something of that order.

Senator ROBERTS:Dr Johnson, you’re required to produce any information or documents that are requested to this committee. There’s no privacy, security, freedom of information or other legislation that overrides this Senate committee’s constitutional powers to gather evidence. You’re protected from any potential prosecution as a result of your evidence or producing documents to this committee. If anyone seeks to pressure you against producing documents, that’s also a contempt. If you wish to raise an immunity claim, there are proper processes around that, and it is up to the Senate whether to accept that, not you or the minister. Can you please take on notice to produce that document to the committee and the cost—

Dr Johnson: Which document are you referring to, Senator?

Senator ROBERTS: The cost.

Dr Johnson: Of ROBUST?

Senator ROBERTS: Yes.

Dr Johnson: The decision around the cost of ROBUST—

Senator McAllister: Just take it on notice.

Dr Johnson: We’ll take it on notice.

Senator ROBERTS:Thank you, Minister. David Burton of Inigo Jones, long-term weather forecaster, uses sunspots and planetary cycles to correctly forecast weather decades in advance. He’s got a track record because he’s got investors who invest as a result of his successful forecast. He posted 12 months ago that the good rains would start after 20 November 2023. There was no El Nino, and cyclones were likely. David Burton has no computer models and uses a $20 calculator because he understands the cycles. He got the weather right; you got it wrong. Hayden Walker, another long-term weather forecaster, correctly forecasted severe storms in the areas where they did occur. Will you talk to these private forecasters to work out why their systems are right and yours was wrong? Theirs are actually history. Yours are models—aren’t they?

Dr Johnson: I reject the whole premise of your questions. Our forecasts, as I’ve indicated at the previous hearing on this subject, were remarkably accurate. I’m happy to go through them again. What we said is on the Hansard in terms of the seasonal outlook. We were very clear, as the year progressed, that we were moving out of a dry warming trend into a moistening trend. We were also very clear in our messaging that, irrespective of the ENSO status and the seasonal forecast, we know that in northern Australia, in particular, there is always the risk of severe weather—cyclones and floods—under any climatic situation. I don’t agree with the premise of your question.

Senator ROBERTS: This is not just northern Queensland, where we know that it’s prone to storms, but western Queensland and southern Queensland. We know that your bureau declares El Nino and positive Indian Ocean Dipole events. David Burton said there was no El Nino and cyclones were likely. David Burton quite often gets it right. He’s paid a considerable amount of money because David Burton’s, Hayden Walker’s and, prior to them, Inigo Jones’ and various other people’s methods have been in use for decades. Farmers, investors and businesses pay for their forecast. They have to go out into the market and sell.

Dr Johnson: I understand that, and millions of Australians rely on our forecasts every day, including farmers and folks in the business community. I just reaffirm to you, as I did at the previous estimates, just how remarkably accurate our forecasts were over the period. I’ve certainly said in previous hearings and in other forums that we acknowledge that some of the messaging that we gave during the previous spring and summer didn’t get through in a manner that we would like.

That’s not to blame the recipients of that messaging. It’s just a fact. People heard a message around an ENSO status and thought, ‘That’s it; it’s going to be hot and dry.’ We update our forecasts every week, and we regularly updated our outlooks, and those outlooks proved to be very accurate.

We also affirmed, in all those messages that, particularly during the summer and irrespective of the ENSO status, the risk in this country of thunderstorms, floods and tropical cyclones remains. In fact, at the national severe weather forum here in Canberra, I made that very clear in my own presentation: one thing that this country has taught us is that severe weather can occur at any time. We’re very clear in our messaging around that. I’m only going to comment on our forecasts and warnings. Others are welcome to comment on those made other parties, but I stand by the quality of our forecast. I did so at the previous hearing, and I’ll continue to do so.

Senator ROBERTS:Well I do agree with you—

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, we’re going to have to rotate the call.

Senator ROBERTS:I note that your own forecast—

Dr Johnson: I’d like to have a look at this—

Senator ROBERTS: That’s produced by you.

Dr Johnson: I know, but a very quick and cursory—and maybe it’s not helpful, Chair—is that you’re comparing two different measures of data there. One’s talking about chance of exceedance and another one talks about actuals. The two are fundamentally different concepts. Just because you have a map of Australia with colours doesn’t mean to say that the two datasets are comparable. Let me have a look at it. If you have a specific question, I’d be happy to take it on notice.

Senator ROBERTS:Your faulty forecast caused farmers to offload cattle. The benchmark Eastern States Young Cattle Indicator sat as high as 1,192 cents per kilogram of carcass weight in 2022, but by late 2023—after your forecast hit the streets—it had tumbled all the way to 349 cents per kilogram. That’s less than a third. Do you accept responsibility for that loss to the Australian capital market as graziers sold stock because they feared overstocking in the looming dry?

Dr Johnson: Let’s just get the data right here. The Eastern States Young Cattle Indicator was about 1,200 cents per kilogram in January 22, and less than 400 cents by October 23. We released our El Nino declaration on 18 September, so by 18 September that particular measure of cattle prices had dropped somewhere by around 80 per cent. To somehow draw a conclusion that because we issued that declaration on 18 September that resulted in a run on the cattle markets, is just not supported by the data.

As I said at my previous hearings on this matter—in response to, I think, a question from Senator Davey—there are a whole range of factors influencing the decisions of primary producers. I’ve talked to a lot of primary producers and absolutely our advice and our outlooks contribute to their decision-making. But to a person to a farm business that I’ve spoken to there are a whole range of other things that they take into account in making a decision to sell their cattle. So this notion that the bureau declaring an El Nino at 18 September can explain an 80 per cent drop of the cattle prices from January 22 to October 23 is just a nonsense, frankly.

Senator ROBERTS:Thank you, Chair, can we come back?

— *** —

Senator ROBERTS:Dr Johnson, could you please repeat your dates and cattle prices? Eastern Young Cattle Indicator—

Dr Johnson: I’ll try if I can. Let me just find the brief that I have and the advice I have received. I’ve been advised of Rural Bank data that shows the Easten Young Cattle Indicator declined from approximately 1,200c a kilogram in January 2022 to less than 400c a kilogram by October 2023. As I said, we declared an El Nino on 18 September. So, just to reaffirm by that calculation, I’m advised that the cattle price had completed more than 80 per cent of its downward run by the time we declared that El Nino in September.

Senator ROBERTS:Great. Thank you very much.

Dr Johnson: That’s the advice I have.

Senator ROBERTS: The Financial Review blames the Bureau of Meteorology: ‘How the BOM’s big dry weather forecast cost millions’ and ‘Bureau of Meteorology’s botched weather call crushes Elders’ earnings’. There’s ‘BOM mistakes hit farmers but slash inflation’, and then we’ve got others there. Your botched prediction cost more than just farmers; it cost mum-and-dad investors in Elders millions, with the share price dropping 25 per cent. Do you accept that this was the fault of your forecast?

Dr Johnson: Again, I’ve already answered this question. We absolutely stand by our forecast. Our forecasts are remarkably accurate. As I’ve said at previous estimates hearings, commentary in the media, frankly, has been largely ill-informed and inaccurate, and we’ve sought to correct the record where we can. Take, for example, the Australian Financial Review article which asserted that our El Nino declaration had been linked to Elders’ earning advice. I’ve had a look at the Elders’ advice, and it was not stated or even implied in their earnings outlook. I don’t care what the Australian Financial Review reported. My reading of what Elders actually said was that it didn’t state or even imply that the bureau’s El Nino declaration affected earnings for the period 1 October to 30 September. There are lots of things written in the media. Again, we talked about this last time. If you actually have a look at the facts of what we said and when we said it, our forecasts were remarkably accurate given how complex it is and the sheer area that we’re seeking to provide forecasts for. The forecasts are not perfect; they will always contain uncertainty.

Also, the long-range forecasts can’t explicitly predict the emergence of cyclones—individual, specific events. There will be times when you’ll have an anomalous specific event, and hence why, in our public commentary, we seek to affirm to the public and to industry that there’s always the risk of severe weather in this country and there is always the risk of cyclones in the tropics and subtropics in this country. It is a forecast. It is an estimate of a point in time in the future based on the data at a particular point in time. We update it every week. I strongly encourage those who follow our services—and many millions of people do—to continue to check those updates. The situation changes all the time. We continued to update a point-in-time statement back in September as more information came to hand.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, we are going to wrap up, so can you please make this your last question.

Senator ROBERTS: There are lots of people who are saying that the Bureau of Meteorology colours its diagrams to make it look hot and dry but we actually see—and this is rainfall over 124 years—no pattern or trend, no declining trend or increasing trend, just natural variation. And that’s from the BOM. Why the doom and gloom? Why depress expectations for rural output, which also depresses investment, training and employment in the bush, reduces the standard of living and increases the cost of living?

Dr Johnson: I’m not sure I understand your question, Senator.

Senator ROBERTS:Why are you so negative and preaching fear and doom when there’s nothing to suggest that, and why do you use colours to exaggerate it?

Dr Johnson: I don’t agree with your statement that we are preaching doom and gloom. We’re simply reporting the observations we’re making of the environment around us, and we’re reporting, to the best of our ability, what our guidance is for the time ahead. We do that objectively, using world-class, internationally peer reviewed, highly regarded scientific methods, and we’ll continue to do so. I think we’re entirely objective in our pronunciations and our public statements.

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Power to the People – The National Rally Against Reckless Renewables

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Renewable energy is facing failure on a number of fronts, not least of which is merit. Engineers and energy regulators – even those who were once enthusiastic about solar panels, wind turbines and batteries – are showing signs of nervousness. The lights are flickering. The costs are mounting. And globally, raw materials are running short.

Read the full article here: Power to the people: the National Rally Against Reckless Renewables | The Spectator Australia

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The Malcolm Roberts Show with Steven Nowakowski

Steven Nowakowski, cartographer, author, nature photographer, environmentalist, and former pro-wind and solar advocate joins me on the Malcolm Roberts Show.

Steven was a Green activist until 5 years ago when he saw firsthand the impact of wind turbines on the natural environment at Mount Emerald, at a pristine plateau of remnant forest full of endangered flora and fauna. Steven’s eye witness experience of the sacrifice of mountain tops for wind factories changed his mind. Steven speaks from the heart. He has a genuine passion for biodiversity and wild places.

If you want to know more about what we’re not being told about the delusional Net Zero targets, this interview is eye-opening. Steven exposes the ‘renewable’ energy sector, its costly failure, and how its impacting the lives of communities and natural ecosystems.

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Bushfires a Threat Created by Greenies, Not Climate Change

Watch out for climate change scam artists claiming every bushfire is because of climate change.

As this summer shapes up to be dangerous (just like every other bushfire season for decades has been dangerous) the real threat are the pretend greenies that have stopped us doing reduction burns.

Any home lost to a bushfire is the fault of people that stopped reduction burns and has nothing to do with “climate change”.

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Dirty by Nature

The Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 is a deceptive name for a dirty bill that the Albanese government is rushing through the senate more than four months earlier than the committee requested.

What it’s really about is the federal government using the public purse to financially coerce farmers to lock up their land or walk off it altogether to satisfy the dictates of foreign, unelected climate change bureaucrats.

What’s the hurry to get this through? Does this government feel the winds of change blowing in its direction?

Transcript

Senator Roberts: I seek leave to make a short statement. 

The PRESIDENT: You have one minute with leave. 

Senator Roberts: The government’s motion to rush this inquiry report through today, more than four months earlier than the committee requested and the Senate agreed, is a dodgy, dirty deal. The Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 is a deceptive, arrogant title. It’s really about the federal government financially coercing farmers to lock up their land or walk off it to satisfy the dictates of foreign, unelected climate change bureaucrats, like COP28. No wonder the government wants to cut short the inquiry into this bill and rush the bill through this week. All of the climate rent seekers are happy to support this bill because, eventually, it will lead to money in their pockets from the people of Australia. While farmers are paid to lock up their land, a lack of agricultural production will cause untold human misery both in Australia and overseas. One Nation will be opposing this rushed dirty deal. Give the committee the time it originally requested to make its report. 

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The question before the Senate is that the motion moved by Senator Chisholm seeking a variation to a reporting date of a committee be agreed to. 

The Senate divided.

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No Basis for Extreme Weather Predictions

The Australian Department of Treasury website states that extreme weather events are expected to occur with increased frequency and severity. I asked in the recent senate estimates what sources Treasury had based this prediction. I was informed that it was consistent with the government-stated position on climate change and climate action.

Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report on the Science says there have been no detectable increase in the number of natural disasters. It summarises the available scientific evidence on the signal of natural disasters and finds no change in signals for weather-related events, including river flood, rain in terms of heavy precipitation, landslide, drought, fire, wind speed, tropical cyclone, relative, sea level, coastal flood and marine heat wave.

The Minister was not prepared to take my question on notice regarding their source of empirical scientific data.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: The next one is fairly straightforward. A statement on the Treasury website states that ‘Extreme weather events are also expected to occur with increased severity and frequency’. On what are you basing that statement?

Ms Kelley: We worked with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the AOFM in terms of the statement, and the statement is consistent with the government’s stated position on climate change and climate action. The statement uses publicly available information from the 2023-24 budget and the Annual Climate Change Statement.

Senator ROBERTS: I’m sure it’s consistent with lots of things, because you just told me where the sources of it are. I’ll go back to the quote: ‘Extreme weather events are also expected to occur with increased frequency and severity’. I’ll direct you to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report on the science, chapter 12, table 12.12. That summarises the available scientific evidence on the signal of natural disasters. I’ll run through some of the types of disasters where the United Nations says there’s been no detectable increase in the number of natural disasters: frost; river flood; rain, measured in terms of heavy precipitation or mean precipitation; landslide; drought; fire weather; wind speed; windstorm; tropical cyclone; dust storm; heavy snowfall; hail; relative sea level; coastal flood; and marine heatwave. There’s been no change in signal for any of these events according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. So I’m wondering what type of weather event this increased risk you are claiming is going to come from. What type of natural disaster are you talking about?

Ms Kelley: That’s probably not my area within the department, so—

Senator ROBERTS: Do you think I should take it up with the department that you copied your policy from?

Ms Kelley: Yes, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is probably the most appropriate department.

Senator ROBERTS: So you’ve taken their material and just placed it on your website? You’ve trusted them.

Ms Kelley: We have been wholly consistent with government policy in terms of the statement. It’s informed by a range of different pieces of evidence.

Senator ROBERTS: Great. Thank you very much.

Senator Gallagher: Senator Roberts, I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this.

Senator ROBERTS: No, we don’t have to agree to disagree. We just have to get the data. Perhaps you could take it on notice, Minister, to get me that data.

CHAIR: Thank you very much—

Ms Kelley: Sorry, could I just add to the question about—

Senator ROBERTS: I wouldn’t be winking about it, Senator Gallagher.

Senator Gallagher: Eh?

Senator ROBERTS: I wouldn’t be winking about it.

Senator Gallagher: No, well, this comes up a lot—

Senator ROBERTS: This is costing this country trillions. This is costing our country trillions of dollars.

Senator Gallagher: I think, fundamentally, we have a different—

Senator ROBERTS: Mine’s informed by the data.

Senator Gallagher: You strongly object to climate science. We don’t.

Senator ROBERTS: I don’t reject it. That’s a false statement. I don’t reject the climate science; I follow the climate science.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, thank you. Ms Kelley would like to make a final remark.

Ms Kelley: I just want to answer your question about the costs. I’ve got some clarification. We’ve borne our own costs, and Ms O’Donnell is bearing hers. There are no other decisions to be made about costs.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you very much. I just make the point that the minister is not willing to provide me with a source for that advice to the government. You’re a senior member of the government.

Senator Gallagher: I think at a number of estimates hearings, on a number of questions on notice, that information has been provided, Senator Roberts. If there’s anything further we can provide, I’m happy to add—

Senator ROBERTS: Senator Gallagher, I need to correct you. The logical scientific points, with the empirical scientific data, have never been provided to me by anyone.

CHAIR: Thank you. Thank you, Minister. Senator Roberts, I’m just going to make the decision that there’s a repetition to your line of questioning. Thank you very much for your brevity in general.

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Killing the Environment to Save It

Installing wind turbines requires massive environmental damage, from grinding the tops of mountains for the 250 metre high wind turbines to gouging 50 metre wide roadways to access them. That’s in addition to the hundreds of kilometres of turbine and the electricity transmission lines that run through national park and private land.

Wind turbines create disturbance to the air that prevents soaring birds from flying in the “tail” of these turbines. Kaban wind turbines near Ravenshoe are so large the disturbance interferes with soaring birds like Black Swans and Brolgas for as much as 5 km.

This parasitic mis-investment has to stop now.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people that make up our Queensland community, three weeks ago I travelled the Atherton Tablelands, known locally as the Garden of Eden. The area is amongst the world’s most productive farmland. Original native forest and vegetation still cover much of the tablelands—until now. Now, foreign predatory, parasitic corporations are replacing our natural environment with an industrial landscape of wind turbines. Thousands of hectares are being cleared to make way for 86 wind turbines in the foreign-owned Chalumbin industrial wind development. At 250 metres tall, these towers will have the third-longest blades in the world. Installing these parasitic misinvestments involves literally grinding the tops off mountains to create the large, flat area needed for the base of these monsters, plus access roads and easements to get the power back to where it is needed. This is industrial-level environmental vandalism.

Already, the nearby foreign-owned Kaban development has created scars across the tops of mountains, destroying habitat for native flora and fauna. Kaban has disturbed arsenic naturally in local rock formations. We simply don’t know what effect this will have on native wildlife in the years ahead. The Woodleigh Swamp is an important wetland. Thousands of swans and brolgas normally rest here each year. Locals say that since Kaban opened, only a few kilometres away, the swamp has been almost deserted. Kaban and Chalumbin environmental impact statements make no mention of the catastrophic effects these installations have on uplift capacity for migratory and soaring birds, nor abandonment of natural upland habitat, despite a wealth of papers proving the link. The Australian Conservation Foundation are calling for an end to wind turbines being located in virgin bushland. That should be the consensus. The Atherton Tablelands community I listen to have asked me to relay a message to Minister Plibersek: end the environmental vandalism now!

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