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Former Snowy 2.0 Boss slams Bowen’s Wind and Solar plan: “Bull***t”

Former Snowy 2.0 boss Paul Broad has just SLAMMED Bowen’s ‘transition to renewables’, calling it ‘bull***t’.

“The notion that you can have 80% renewable in our system by 2030 is, to use the vernacular, bull***t. The truth is, this transition, if it ever occurs, will take 80 years, not eight.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Paul.

Transcript

Ben: 17 minutes after 7:00. Well, we’ve said this line a number of times, don’t jump off the boat until you’ve reached the shore, and we say it about Australia’s dramatic switch to renewable energy. We’re switching off coal at rapid rates. The backup plan isn’t ready to go just yet. Take the massive hydro energy project, Snowy 2.0. It’s long been promised to store enough energy for 3 million homes. The project is disastrously delayed and over budget. The former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said in 2017 it would be up and running by 2021. Now they’re saying 2029. It’s gone from a $2 billion price tag to 10 billion, including all of the linked transmission lines.

I wanted to have a chat to someone who knows about this backwards. His name is Paul Broad. He’s one of Australia’s leading experts on infrastructure. Now, Paul Broad was the CEO of Snowy 2.0 for a decade, but his tenure ended shortly after Chris Bowen became the federal energy minister. Paul Broad delivered Mr. Bowen some home truths about how the project was going. He was sent packing shortly after, or maybe he decided to leave. Paul Broad, the former boss of Snowy 2.0 is on the line. Paul, thanks for joining us.

Paul Broad: Thanks. My pleasure, Ben.

Ben: Did you leave or were you shoved?

Paul Broad: Oh, a bit of combination. The word was filtering down. In fact, I think when Bowen was elected, I was dead in the water, so it was only a matter of time. But I formally resigned.

Ben: Why were you dead in the water? What was it that was such a sticking point between where you stand and where Chris Bowen stood?

Paul Broad: Oh, a series of things, particularly the gas plant at Kurri Kurri, Angus Taylor and I were very strong that you needed gas to keep the lights on. And we had more gas in New South Wales than we know what to do with. We need gas. So when the sun’s not shining, wind’s not blowing, gas, hydro are incredibly important. And Chris Bowen was against Kurri Kurri. Then he said we’re going to run Kurri Kurri 30% on hydrogen. There is no hydrogen in the Hunter, and there won’t be for another 10, 20 years at the earliest.

Ben: You were just trying to help, right?

Paul Broad: Well, yeah, trying to help. I think in the 18 months leading up to it, in the senate estimate, the parliament asking us lots of these sort of questions. So you got a sense of where Chris was coming from, and that’s his political view. I respect that, I just didn’t agree with it and there’s no point being somewhere if you don’t agree with it.

Ben: You could have just drunk the Kool-Aid and said, “Oh yeah. No, this is going to be the answer to all of our problems. It’ll be able to carry the load.” But you were being realistic and he didn’t want to hear it?

Paul Broad: Yeah. Plus the fact, the notion that you can have 80% renewable in our system by 2030 is, to use the vernacular, is bullshit. It’s bullshit. Ben, the truth is, this transition, if it ever occurs, it will take 80 years, not eight. So there’s massive changes need to occur. And I’m deeply concerned about the rush, the notion that somehow this is all magic, I’m going to wave a magic wand, we’ll close a big baseload power plant that’s kept our lights on for yours of my life, we’re just going to close it and there’s all these alternatives out there. Well, it’s not. I can be absolutely 100% certain it’s not available, and the transmission lines are miles late. 2.0, which is a part of the thing is late. I think their own reports tell them you’ll need at least eight 2.0s to achieve their goal, and that’s 80 years not eight.

Ben: Let’s just have a look at 2.0. So the biggest issue is these giant tunnelling machines. They weigh 2000 tonnes. They keep falling through the soft ground. Do we know how far along this project is? Is it halfway? Beyond halfway?

Paul Broad: Yeah. Look, I’ve got to defend 2.0, it was a huge part of my creation, and I’m quite proud of the attempt to build a big pumped hydro, but it’s complex. These tunnel-boring machines have got to do through heaps of rock. There’s 28 kilometres of tunnels, 11 metres diameter. And one of them has got to actually bore uphill. So they’ve got to come in and get access to a cabin, and then you’ve got to drill out a cabin, which is 400 metres long, a kilometre under the mountain. So the complexity of this thing is enormous. So I’m not surprised that we’ve got delays. I suppose what worries me more is the lack of transmission.

So you have this big power plant, it’s of no use to you if you haven’t got a transmission line out the front to run it into where the people are. So the lack of transmission is going to be a big, big problem for us. The lack of transmission to bring all these renewables. The power plants we have are just up the road here in the Hunter, all these new renewables are out west or somewhere else. There’s no power lines to get it here. So the notion you can have all this occurring without transmission and all the other investment which will cost the customer, the consumers a lot, the suggestion you can do all that and price is going to come down. It’s just wrong. It’s absolutely wrong. It’s misleading, it’s false and to keep suggesting that, I think eventually, eventually the average punter wakes up, and there’ll be a reaction.

Ben: We’re listening to Paul Broad, the former of boss of Snowy 2.0. Just on the timeline, I actually had a meeting with someone who’s associated with the project about a month or so ago. And I said, “What’s going on with this thing? Because we were told it’d be done by 2021, and now you’re talking about 2027.” And then they said to me, “Oh, it might be late 2027.” And I said, “Well, that sounds to me like 2028.” Now they’re saying December 2029. When I hear December 2029, I think 2030. Realistically, when’s it going to be done?

Paul Broad: Well, the transmission line is ’27, so I suspect they’ll get first power, I suspect… Now something else will happen. I think the challenges for building it are still in front of them. The biggest challenge they have for this whole project is still to come. So there’s lots of risk with it yet, but I suspect, given the fudges the engineers do, I’m suspecting end of ’27, middle of ’27, that sort of timeframe. But Ben, there’s no point having it if the transmission line… So we’ve got to work out, someone’s got to tell us when are the farmers going to agree to run power lines over their properties? When are they going to agree to pay the farmers a reasonable annual sum to access and run their lines over their property? When all that’s agreed and they work out the direction these things are going to come… We haven’t upgraded them in 50 years, let alone in five.

Ben: We’ve spoken to some of those farmers and they’re worried because they say they’ve got to knock down all of these trees to put the lines in. We’re worried about bush fires. And the other issue is just that old line, “It’s my land, it’s my property.”

Paul Broad: Absolutely. Then well what happened, the truth of it, they had all these shiny asses from Sydney rock up to the farms and say, “I’m going to put a power line over your property.” Well, the farmers said, “Get lost. You’re not coming on my property.” It is their livelihood. It is what they live for. So they got off to a really bad start. All the people around Tumut and Gundagai, all those people are now up in arms because these things have got to be done right. You’ve got to sit down and you’ve got to be able to be flexible about the direction you go to minimise the impact on farmers. They had some power lines going right over the farmer’s house.

So there’s still a lot of work to be done on the transmission. There’s still a lot of work to be done on 2.0. And the reports out saying you’re going to need lots of 2.0. So it’s really just the start of the journey. It’s not the end and I think the notion that we can close these plants, no, Eraring can’t, cannot close. Even now, we’re closing Liddell. We’re on a knife’s edge. You watch when it gets really hot or really cold, just how tight it gets in New South Wales. If the lights don’t go out, I’ll be awfully surprised.

Ben: A couple of quick ones, one of the private contractors went into administration in December. We’ve heard there are still unpaid bills to both workers and to ongoing construction.

Paul Broad: Yeah, the contractor’s got a lot to answer for. And I don’t want to go on air and bag a contractor, but they’ve got a lot to answer for. And I think they were trying games by not paying the local small contractors, and as soon I was there, I was prepared to go and pay the contractors ourselves, and then extract it from the big contractor later. The major contractor has safety problems. They tragically lost a life down there a week or so ago. The contractor has a lot of questions to answer. They’re under a fixed-price contract, so these prices shouldn’t be going up, but they are. They’re on a performance-based contract, they’re not performing. There is some big question marks and Clough going broke halfway as well, 12 months ago, it’s been a big problem. The Clough guys were integral part of delivering it. So the contractor has a huge challenge in front of them and they’ve got huge questions to answer.

Ben: Just on question marks, were you hiding some of the delays from Chris Bowen? Because I’ve seen the Financial Review. A spokeswoman for Mr. Bowen told the Financial Review that, “It was no secret that the government was disappointed in the hiding of delays to major energy projects by the former government including Snowy Hydro 2.0.”

Paul Broad: That is just bullshit. The first meeting with Bowen, my first meeting with Bowen, he asked me and I said, “Yeah, 12 to 18 months.” When I was with last meeting with Angus, which was back in April when the contractor rocked into Angus’s office and said that, “We think you’re going to be delaying going [inaudible 00:09:41] cost increase,” Angus kicked him out of the office and said, “It’s got to be delivered on time and on budget.” That’s the truth. I mean why does his office on this political spin? What is he trying to do? Fair dinkum. Why not just tell the truth? It’s really easy. In life, I find if you tell the truth, you can remember it and you don’t get yourself in too much trouble.

Ben: I said at the start of my introduction, that line that a talk back caller said to me once about the switch to renewables, “Don’t jump off the boat until you’ve reached the shore.” Can you reflect on that for a moment before we say goodbye?

Paul Broad: Yeah, that’s absolutely true. We can’t make this transition until we’re absolutely convinced that the alternative’s going to work, and is going to be at a price point that it won’t kill the economy. At the moment, we’ve got neither of those.

Ben: You say the idea of getting to 80% renewables by 2030 is complete BS. You say closer to 80 years?

Paul Broad: Yeah. Well, you got to build these things. Transmission lines, their own reports say you’ll need eight 2.0s or their equivalents. One 2.0 takes 10 years, so get eight. I could do my maths, it’s got to be 80, 70, so it’ll be another generation before anything like what they’re talking about occurs.

Ben: We know it’s never too late to learn a lesson. What would you say to Chris Bowen if he’s listening this morning?

Paul Broad: Oh, take a big deep breath. You’re a minister now, you’ve got responsibilities. You got to put it all on the line and you got to be honest to everybody about it.

Ben: We really appreciate you coming on the line. You haven’t mucked about, you’re pulling no punches this morning, and we appreciate that, Paul.

Paul Broad: Thanks, Ben.

Ben: Paul Broad, the former boss of Snowy 2.0 and I can only imagine the reaction in Chris Bowen’s office right now. They won’t be liking what they’re hearing, but it sounds to me like he’s just given a unfiltered view of Snowy 2.0, and also the transition to renewables. And you heard what he said about the government’s targets, BS. And he didn’t put it the way I just put it then. He’s also weighed into the other issue, which is just so obvious, about needing to keep our major coal plant open. That is something that Chris Minns entertained during the election campaign, and thankfully since winning the election, he suggested that that is a must, that he’s got to work out how we can keep the supply going and keep the prices low. And the discussions are underway with the operators.

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Parliament passes $15 billion slush fund

The National Reconstruction Fund is a slush fund that makes sports rorts look like chump change.

We have a trillion-dollar deficit, and the Albanese government is throwing around $15 billion like it’s Monopoly money.

It’s time that the government got out of the way of the private sector and personal enterprise.

Transcript

Queensland community, I speak to the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023.

One Nation has, on occasion, pointed out that Labor will run a government for the benefit of their union boss mates, the Liberals for the benefit of their big business mates, and the teals and the Greens for the benefit of their sugar daddies, the billionaire climate-change carpetbaggers. So it was with amusement that I saw an exchange between Minister Gallagher and Senator Rennick on social media over the weekend. Senator Rennick mentioned in a speech that he did not agree with the slush funds that the Liberal-Nationals set up during their government.

I appreciate and compliment Senator Rennick for his integrity. He has shown that repeatedly in this parliament and outside.

Senator Gallagher could not resist. Oblivious to the irony of her comments, Minister Gallagher said Senator Rennick had ‘belled the cat’, admitting to ‘slush funds and rorts galore’. ‘The Bell and the Cat’ is a medieval fable—a cautionary tale on the nature of impossible tasks. Admittedly, it’s an appropriate choice, given the impossibility of the Liberals ever running government for the benefit of the people.

But the irony of the minister’s decision to engage the Liberals on the issue of rorting is tone deaf, considering that this bill was on the Notice Paper at the time. The minister’s words are suggestive of a quite different fable—the pot calling the kettle black, which is 16th-century Spanish homily in which somebody accuses someone else of a fault which the accuser shares and, therefore, is an example of psychological projection—that’s a polite way of saying ‘hypocrisy’.

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023 is 100 per cent pork barrel—the very thing of which the minister accuses others. This bill creates a $15 billion fund to oversee Australia’s reconstruction. It would have been helpful to define the word ‘reconstruction’, Minister. Minister Husic must have overlooked the fundamental reason for this bill. The word ‘reconstruction’ does not appear in this bill. At a guess, reconstruction must involve infrastructure spending, right? Wrong. The word ‘infrastructure’ does not appear in this bill either. The word was added by the crossbench in the other place, the House of Representatives, as part of their amendment banning—banning!—certain types of infrastructure spending.

The Greens and teals were helpful, as usual! For clarity, that was sarcasm.

The bill does provide for spending on priority projects, yet there’s no definition of what a priority project actually is. I understand these will be manufacturing projects. Why, then, does the bill not mention the word ‘manufacturing’?

Not once is manufacturing mentioned. This is significant because the bill allows the minister to fill in all these details later. Yet if these much needed initiatives—reconstruction, manufacturing and infrastructure—were the purpose of this bill then section 5 would define these concepts and set out what is and what is not ‘reconstruction’, ‘manufacturing’ and ‘infrastructure’. It does not. It fails to do this basic step.

I expected to see a statement of fairness, ensuring projects are funded based on the needs of the region in which the projects are located, having mind to the overarching concept of national interest. There’s a novelty! It doesn’t do that, either—which is not a novelty, because that’s the way this parliament works. It’s not in the national interest.

This bill does have a section on consultation, requiring the corporation to consult with the Australian Banking Association—Minister Jones’s best mates are the first ones on the list; what a surprise!—and the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Investment Council, Industry Super Australia and the Law Council of Australia. What an odd list. If this was about infrastructure, the requirement would be to consult with Infrastructure Australia; it’s not there. If this was about manufacturing, then you could consult with Manufacturing Australia, or, to drive manufacturing into a new era, one could consult—one would consult—with the Australian Advanced Manufacturing Council, but no. Taking Australian industry into the emerging space industry offers the prospect of billions in new sales and high-paying breadwinner jobs. The Space Industry Association of Australia should have been on that list; it was not.

There’s $15 billion in funding without once mentioning the fundamental purpose of the spending—$15 billion, without once requiring consultation with the bodies that could help direct this spending to the national interest.

There are no checks, no balances, no guidance to the minister, no guidance to the board of the corporation and no KPIs—key performance indicators. There’s no measure of success, no measure of failure. To call this bill a blank cheque is an insult to blank cheques. And it’s an insult to taxpayers, whose money is being spent.

The Senate Economics Legislation Committee’s inquiry into the bill does cast some light on where this money will be spent. The inquiry heard from multiple witnesses advocating for spending the $15 billion on solar and wind energy boondoggles—more carpetbagging. Australia already has the clean energy fund, spending $25 billion on unreliable, weather dependent power to take us back to before the industrial revolution. If the transition to weather dependent power was actually in the national interest and was dictated by market forces, these solar and wind carpetbaggers would not be buzzing around reconstruction funding like flies in search of excrement. I foreshadow that I will be moving an amendment in the committee of the whole which requires that a corporation cannot invest in an energy project that meets the criteria for funding by the Clean Energy Council—no double-dipping. There is no justification for using this $15 billion of taxpayer money to make Australia’s energy capacity worse.

The title of the bill raises an important question: what exactly are we reconstructing from? Are we reconstructing from three years of ruinous COVID lockdowns and restrictions that gutted the economy—destroyed the economy?

Are we reconstructing from a generation of ruinous net zero measures that have seen cheap, reliable base-load power replaced with expensive and short-lived materials-heavy wind and solar power? Are we reconstructing from the exporting of Australia’s manufacturing sector to China under the Hawke-Keating Labor government in the eighties?

Indeed, discussion on the nuclear subs purchased last week shows that former prime minister Keating has lost none of his loyalty to China. Are we reconstructing from a generation of oppressive development constraints provided across the range of government?

Is it red tape from an out-of-control bureaucracy that demands more and more power with less and less oversight in pursuit of a war against common sense, freedom and basic decency? Is it green tape, designed to make rich, pampered inner-city luvvies feel better about their own environmental footprint while destroying any chance the rural sector has for a profitable business? Or is it blue tape from the mountain of unelected, unaccountable foreign bureaucrats spreading a gospel of everyday Australians having less so that predatory billionaires can own it all? It’s about Australians having less so that predatory billionaires can own it all. That’s their ideological bible. It is not the economy that needs reconstruction; it is the government that needs reconstruction.

Here’s One Nation’s reconstruction plan: just stop it. Stop it. Stop strangling the life out of the private sector. Stop strangling the life out of small business. Stop strangling the life out of families and taxpayers. Stop using taxpayers’ money to pick winners and losers amongst new business ventures, when that task should rightly be performed by the free market and by personal enterprise and initiative, leading to personal responsibility. Stop rewarding your mates in the solar and wind sector, who have spent tens of millions of dollars earnt from renewable solar and wind boondoggles to get pet parliamentarians elected who now have seriously conflicted loyalties. Stop rewarding party donors with taxpayer money dressed up as reconstruction funding. Stop the cronyism.

Australia is not and never will be a centrally planned economy. In fact, no economy will be centrally planned; they all collapse. We have a trillion-dollar deficit, and the Albanese government is throwing around $15 billion like it were Monopoly money. It’s time that the government got out of the way of the private sector, personal enterprise, and let the profit motive and free enterprise competition decide what gets built and what does not. Let the customers decide.

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023 is last-century Soviet thinking, a product of the comrades deep in Trades Hall who do not seem to have noticed that the Soviet Union has fallen, because it failed
to maintain the standard of living of everyday people. Standards of living in Australia are decreasing—the reverse of what is happening to energy prices. That is one of the many causes. This bill is ideological rubbish designed to reward businesses who promote joining union bosses. That is the sentence the minister will put in later.

Subject to amendments, One Nation opposes this bill.

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Labor and the Greens have decided you have too much stuff

This week the Safeguard Mechanism Bill will pass after a dodgy Labor deal with the Greens and David Pocock.

More than 200 of the largest companies in this country will have to cut their production. There’ll be less electricity, less essential goods and they’ll all be more expensive.

Just remember, you are the carbon they want to reduce.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Australia and particularly Queensland, I speak on the Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting Amendment) Bill 2023. Here we go again! Once more, the Labor government is putting a Liberal-National climate policy on steroids in a race to see how quickly both of them can destroy our beloved country to appease their globalist masters.

Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese are building, in this bill, on the safeguard mechanism that Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt introduced in 2015. This bill establishes a new form of carbon credits—or, more correctly, carbon dioxide credits, or, more correctly, a carbon dioxide tax—naming them safeguard mechanism credit units, or SMCs. You might ask: what is a safeguard mechanism credit unit defined as? Is it nine cow farts worth? Ten burps? The entire concept of counting carbon dioxide emissions is a scam; it’s a fraud. While we can poke fun at the scam, the lack of detail in this bill is incredibly serious. Do not let the title fool anyone. The definition of a safeguard mechanism credit is not in the bill. If the parliament passes this bill, we’ll just have to trust the minister or some bureaucrat to tell us later.

The biggest producers of goods in this country will be told to cut their production of carbon dioxide, with the amount not defined in the bill. It may be 4.9 per cent a year. If they don’t, they’ll be forced to buy undefined carbon dioxide credits—an undefined carbon dioxide tax. I use the word ‘producers’ deliberately because this bill will apply to companies in this country that actually make something—or what’s left of them. Because they’ve been forced to buy carbon dioxide credits, these companies will be forced to make less of the things they make and be forced to make them more expensive. It doesn’t matter what fancy scheme the government wants to dress this up as; it is a carbon dioxide tax. It’s a tax on production, and we all know that whenever we tax something we get less of it.

Take a look around at everything you have right now—your phone, your house, your car. If you want a new one in the future, or more things for your children, too bad; the Labor government has decided Australians have too much already and what’s left will only be for the rich, who can afford it. The Greens will smear and label me again for simply telling the truth, yet I believe we should come to parliament to make Australia prosper—not force unnecessary scarcity to appease the sun gods and the climate carpetbaggers. That’s the general rule that should be followed for a prosperous Australia: do what’s in the national interest.

Let’s look at the globalists. This legislation is not in Australia’s interest. Gutless politicians are doing it all to satisfy unelected and unaccountable foreign organisations. All of Australia’s climate legislation has abundant references to satisfying our international commitments, including the UN’s Kyoto protocol, the UN’s Paris Agreement, the UN Agenda 21, UN 2050 net zero and so on and on, with the UN World Economic Forum alliance. The creators of these international agreements are unelected and unaccountable. These foreign bureaucrats believe the prosperity of Australians should come second to their desire to transfer wealth from our people into the hands of predatory billionaires. Don’t be fooled. While this supposedly green pipedream dresses itself as virtuous, the billionaires of the world have untold amounts invested in wind, solar, batteries, green hydrogen and other scams in which they demand a return. Having predictably failed in the free market, they must now hijack international organisations to pressure governments into the forced uptake of their failed investments. With such large amounts of money at stake, the billionaires can afford to buy guns for hire at many different levels.

The teal Independents—Monique Ryan, Allegra Spender, Zoe Daniel, Kylea Tink, Sophie Scamps and Zali Steggall—all peculiarly made submissions to the consultation paper for this bill, arguing it should go even further. Did they declare their clear conflicts of interest? Collectively, the teals received millions of dollars from Climate 200 for their election campaign. Climate 200’s principal donor, Simon Holmes a Court, has massive investments in wind, solar, battery and hydrogen scams. He, along with many other climate billionaires, will benefit hugely from this bill’s passage. It seems the teals’ calls for transparency don’t apply to them and donations aren’t dirty if they come from ‘sugar daddy and carpetbagger’ Holmes a Court. Equally, in this debate I hope Senator David Pocock declares the same conflict of interest that arises from Climate 200’s donations to his campaign, making him a teal. This bill allows the climate billionaires to harvest taxpayer money through their scams like carbon capture, locking up productive farms and other cons. What schemes will be entitled to harvest taxpayer money? What will be the criteria for being accepted? What integrity checks will be in place? Nothing.

Some years ago, Euro poll stated ’95 per cent of Europe’s carbon dioxide trading is tainted with corruption’. Nothing in this bill has the answers. We just have to wait for a minister or a bureaucrat to tell us later, after the Senate has passed the bill, giving them incredible power. We do know that the safeguard mechanism credits will be defined as ‘eligible international emissions units’, meaning they will be able to be traded overseas, globally. As even the Australian Financial Markets Association noted during consultation: ‘There is no good reason for making the credits internationally trade-able’—other than perhaps helping the globalist billionaires suck the country dry.

Let’s look at the carbon dioxide credits whitewash. There are too many problems with this bill to fully address in just 15 minutes. We can’t let that time pass, though, without acknowledging one of the greatest exercises in political whitewashing this parliament has seen—the Chubb carbon dioxide credits review. Australian National University environmental law professor and expert, Professor Andrew Macintosh, said Australia’s carbon market is a fraud on the environment, suffers from a distinct lack of integrity and is potentially wasting billions of dollars in taxpayer’s money. In response to this scathing criticism of the integrity of the carbon dioxide credit system, energy minister Chris Bowen rushed to appoint a panel to review the integrity of carbon dioxide credits, an independent panel, supposedly, but how independent can a government-appointed panel really be?

People will be shocked. The government appointed a somehow independent panel and claimed there was nothing to see here. It made a few superficial recommendations and gave the carbon dioxide credit industry a great big fat tick. As Macintosh responded on January 2023: ‘The review panel acknowledge the scientific evidence criticising the carbon credits 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.’ That is an environmental professor seeing right through this. What are they hiding? The Chubb review was a complete sham, designed to give a scam-filled industry a green tick of health to pave the way for this bill. With Ian Chubb’s whitewash review conveniently in place, Labor has given itself permission to rush this bill through, while the scientists who originally raised the integrity issues scream that none of the protests have been addressed. Chubb has repeatedly taken money from Liberal-National and Labor-Greens federal governments to peddle unfounded, false and scary claims. He is a paid gun for hire to push the government line.

Next let us consider the fact, the fact, that we are already at net zero. Why do we need a carbon dioxide credit scheme anyway? As I explained to this chamber in September last year, Australia is already at net zero. Where is the confetti, the streamers, the champagne, the celebrations? Taken directly from clause 4 of the Paris agreement, and as Assistant Minister McAllister in the debate of the climate change bill said:

Net zero is a balance between human production of emissions and removal of those emissions by environmental sinks.

Our country has so many forests that Australia already sequesters or sinks three times more carbon dioxide than we produce. Then when you consider the fact that we are entirely surrounded by oceans, it is even more so. Even to people foolishly believing Australia needs to carry out the net zero kamikaze mission, on net zero we are already the world’s heroes without doing a damn thing.

Let us look at the delegated powers. While the entire concept on which this bill is based is flawed, the way it operates seems to be even worse. The Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting) Amendment Bill 2022 is a shell containing little detail about how the largest producers, manufacturers and resource companies will be regulated. Instead, the bill places huge power in the minister, with out-of-touch federal bureaucrats in the Canberra bubble left to later fill in the detail.

To my colleagues in this chamber: I urge you to please think carefully about the process this bill implements. This is not a vote on some companies cutting production by five per cent—4.9 per cent, five per cent; that number is not even in this bill. It is another ministerial power to decide. This is a bill to give the minister a blank cheque for who this policy will apply to, how much they will be forced to cut, how quickly they will be forced to do it and much, much more.

While some people may consider the current proposal reasonable and proportionate, this nearly unlimited power will almost certainly be abused in the future. Almost all of this policy will be made via legislative instrument, an executive dictate from the minister. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Senate granting this wide-open power over some of the most significant changes to our economy is unconscionable. The design of this bill to minimise parliamentary scrutiny—the deliberate design of this bill to minimise parliamentary scrutiny—spits in the face of the parliament, spits in the face of democracy and spits in the face of the Australian people who you are meant to serve in this chamber.

Let’s think about the consultation. Predictably, we can assume that Labor will—wrongly—assure us that they have consulted widely on this bill. Just like we saw the Treasurer wanting to ‘start a conversation’ about tearing down the economic fabric of our country, Labor’s consultation process is a sham designed to give them cover for doing whatever they please. To consult means actually listening. Labor has no intention of listening. Numerous stakeholders noted the staggered release of the draft bill, the legislative instruments and the Chubb review. Combined, these steps limited the ability to consider the implications of the proposed reforms. How can Labor claim to have consulted, when many of the detailed operational elements of this entire policy are contained in legislative instruments which do not yet exist? How could anyone be consulted on those legislative means? That’s not unusual for Labor.

The bill is unfounded. It is damaging for Australia—it is suicidal—and it is we the people who will pay. One Nation opposes this bill and, if passed, will work to unwind it and tear down the global climate scam that drives this bill.

I want to make a couple more comments—basic questions. Why are China and India not doing what this Labor-Greens-teal-Pocock coalition government is doing? Why is Russia not doing it? Why are we punishing Australian families, employers and workers? Why can the other countries have the benefit of our high-quality coal and gas, hydrocarbon fuels, yet we cannot? Think about the primacy of energy; it’s in everything. We’re killing our productive capacity and our children’s future.

Secondly, the costs of the Labor-Greens-teal-Pocock bill are extraordinarily high. Why are we punishing Australian employers and families? Remember that primacy of energy. That will see prices skyrocketing continually.

Thirdly, there’s no justification in science for cutting carbon dioxide from human activity—no empirical scientific data, no logical scientific points to back this up. I’ve asked them, and they’ve repeatedly run. There’s no specific quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity, none at all. There’s conclusive evidence from two global experiments that overwhelmingly prove that cutting carbon dioxide from human activity has no effect. In 2009 and 2020 we had global recessions, almost depressions, and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued to increase, despite dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide from human activity. It’s pointless. Nature alone determines the level of carbon dioxide. Humans have no effect.

Let’s ask the fourth question. Why are we following in the footsteps of crooks? The father of global warming was senior UN bureaucrat and oil billionaire Maurice Strong. He morphed it into climate change, climate apocalypse and climate breakdown. He was involved in the UN food-for-oil scandal. He was involved in corruption in the water systems of the western United States. He exiled himself in China, running away from the American police. He formed the UN’s climate body that is really a political body. He was the director and founder of the Chicago Climate Exchange, aiming to make billions of dollars trading carbon dioxide credits, like Al Gore’s company, Generation Investment Management. The whole thing is a scam to make billionaires richer, and you in Labor and you in the Greens are following in the footsteps of a crook, Maurice Strong.

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The “Climate Crisis” was started by a criminal!

The “Climate Crisis” are the greatest fraud ever perpetuated on Australians. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was started by a criminal yet this is who governments point to for justification of country destroying climate policies.

The question is, are the people who go along with the scam fools, or complicit?

Transcript

One Nation will not be supporting this motion to suspend standing orders. The real question is something that lies beneath this suspension order request, and that is: are the Greens patsies and fools, or are they complicit in fraud? They’re claiming an escalating climate emergency—a climate breakdown. Here we go again, with no data to back it up. We know that the Greens have never provided any empirical scientific evidence or logical scientific points to back up their assertion of an escalating climate emergency. 

I challenged Senator Waters to a debate in public in 2010—13 years ago—and she still will not debate me. She jumped to her feet and said, ‘I will not debate you.’ I’ve challenged her again, almost daily and weekly since 9 September. 

Senator Waters: Leave me alone! 

Senator Roberts: Now we hear calls of: ‘Leave me alone. I haven’t got the data.’ No. There is no evidence the Greens have that backs up their claim. 

Secondly— 

Senator Cox: Read the report. 

Senator Roberts: I will get to the report in a minute. The second thing is (a)(ii) of the motion, the statement by the United Nations Secretary-General. Did we know that Greta Thunberg, who did not finish high school, was yesterday given an honorary doctorate in theology by the University of Helsinki? It’s a religion, this climate stuff, and the great god is the United Nations. Did you elect the United Nations Secretary-General to run our country? No. I didn’t. They’ve never been elected. 

Let’s have a look at the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. The first, in 1990, was built on fraud, but even that showed that the medieval warming period was warmer than today’s temperatures. That was quickly whipped out of the United Nations next report, in 1995. The scientists gathered under the UN banner said there was no evidence of warming due to human production of carbon dioxide. Yet Ben Santer, one of the scientists, went in and changed that report and presented it in 1995 based on a fraud.

In 2001, 2007, 2013 and 2020 there were reports by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Let’s look at chapter 12. In each of those reports there was only one sole chapter claiming warming and attributing it to carbon dioxide from human activity. In 2001 it was chapter 12. In 2007 it was chapter 9. In 2013 it was chapter 10. Not one of those reports’ sole chapters claiming warming and attributing it to human carbon dioxide contains any evidence for that claim. It’s the same in 2020. 

The Deputy President: Senator Whish-Wilson, do you have a point of order? 

Senator Whish-Wilson: I can put up a lot in this chamber, but having Senator Roberts directly yell at me from five feet away is very difficult to take. Could you ask him to address the chair, as he should according to parliamentary rules? 

The Deputy President: He was going through me, but it’s a lesson to us all to speak through the chair. 

Senator Roberts: We always see that when someone has no evidence they rely upon slurs, innuendo and misrepresentation. Thank you for not being able to challenge my argument. 

Let’s have a look at the basis of this United Nations report. Maurice Strong was a crook. He died in 2015 after returning from self-imposed exile in China.

Maurice Strong started the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a political tool to get his way for his objectives globally. Maurice Strong started the Chicago Climate Exchange. He was a director of the Chicago Climate Exchange. He sought to make billions of dollars of profit from the Chicago Climate Exchange. He was then pursued for the oil-for-food scandal in the United Nations—complicit; another scandal in the United Nations. He was also wanted by American law-enforcement agencies for serious crimes in the United States, including one very big crime in western United States. He fled in exile. He’s a crook!

That’s what the Greens are basing their policies on. That’s what the Labor Party is basing its policies on. That’s what the Liberals and Nationals, with a few exceptions—I note Senator Rennick—are basing their policies on. These policies that are destroying everyday Australians’ lives economically, socially, mentally and morally are based upon a crook, and you’ve fallen for it. What’s more, you’re now getting the people of Australia to pay for it. That is inhuman, it’s irresponsible and it’s dishonest. Are the Greens guilty of fraud or are they simply patsies and fools? 

I note that China produces 4.5 billion tonnes of coal and gets more of our coal, while we’re not allowed to use the 500 million tonnes that we produce in this country. They produce nine times as much and yet they have got no agreement for 2050 net zero.

This is fraud, and this is why we will not support this suspension. 

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CSIRO manipulate assumptions to make wind and solar look cheap

Politicians often point to a CSIRO document called GenCost22 that claims wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy. In reality however, their model has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese.
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Bogged Snowy 2.0 in a hole lot of trouble

The Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro is one of the biggest disasters in our Government’s history.

Originally budgeted as a $2 billion renewable battery, it’s now estimated it won’t get power to the grid for less than $10 Billion. Despite telling me four months ago that the tunneling machine ‘Florence’ wasn’t bogged (it had “encountered soft ground”) the 7.30 Report tells us in the last 10 months the bogged Florence appears to have tunneled just 150m from its starting point before a 50m hole to the surface appeared on top of it.

All of this for a project to produce the same amount of electricity in a year that the Liddell coal fired power station could make in two weeks.
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Who’s going to keep the lights on?

The government continues to push reliable coal fired power out of the grid and push unreliable wind and solar in. Yet no one in Labor will take responsibility for the lights going out when they push it too far.

One Nation believes in cheap reliable electricity for Australia so families don’t have to choose between the power bill and their kids school shoes.
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Labor rams through communist style control over the gas industry

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In an abuse of Parliamentary process and at great expense to the taxpayer, Anthony Albanese has called everyone back to Canberra for one day to pass his thought bubble that will not bring electricity prices down.

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.

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Net-Zero means strip mining the sea floor for rare earths

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The Earth simply doesn’t have enough of the rare earth materials used in batteries and net-zero products to reach net-zero.

That’s even when you take into account the materials gained from strip mining the ocean floor and covering the surrounding ecosystem in silt.

One Nation supports real environmental protection, not the environmental destruction the UN net-zero is pushing.

Transcript

Unreliable, weather-dependent solar and wind power has put a price tag on our oceans. The phrase ‘blue economy’ is used to soften the ugly truth that, to achieve Australia’s transition to net zero, the world’s oceans must be strip-mined for rare-earth minerals. Batteries, solar panels and wind turbines are produced in China, in part using materials that companies, mostly Chinese, mine from the sea floor. Polymetallic nodules needed for solar panels, wind turbines and batteries lay along active volcanic rifts mostly found on the seabed. Giant vacuums suck up the seabed ecosystem to bury and choke the surrounding area in a thick layer of silt. Animals, eggs, sediment, plants—everything is taken off the seabed.

A Greenpeace research fellow, distressed with what was being done, said:

In all cases, seabed mining will, by its very nature, destroy species and habitats within the mining zones. There is no justification for a ‘gold rush’ to mine the seabed …

International waters, particularly in the Pacific, contain more value than the combined mineral wealth of Earth’s continents.

The Pacific is ground zero for this green rush, with China holding the majority of licences that the United Nations International Seabed Authority handed out. The UN International Seabed Authority supports undersea mining because it aligns with the UN’s 2030 so-called—and bogus— Sustainable Development Goals. The former head of the Office of Environmental Management and Mineral Resources at the UN International Seabed Authority is on record saying that the UN International Seabed Authority is ‘not fit to regulate any activity in international waters’ in part due to a perceived conflict of interest with mining giants. Corporations are in control, and, on behalf of those corporations, climate warriors are destroying everything they touch. Explain that to our children. We are one community, we are one nation, and we want our oceans protected from crazy climate warriors.

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