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Tues 5-Dec-2023 | This was voted down by Labor, Liberal-Nationals, the Greens & the Lambie Network.

What have these parties got to hide that they DO NOT WANT an agency that decides billions of dollars in government projects to divulge conflicts of interest?

Labor is hollowing out the bush and lying about it. I asked why the Emu Swamp Dam near Stanthorpe in Queensland was cancelled and Minister Watt responded that it was the road that was cancelled. What Minister Watt did not admit was that Labor had cancelled the dam last year and had recently cancelled the infrastructure around the dam, just to make sure it never gets built.

During the recent drought, Stanthorpe, famous for its apples and grapes, had to resort to water tankers to keep it’s residents supplied. Access to clean water is a basic human requirement. The Emu Swamp Dam was a modest solution to water shortage in the Southern Downs of Queensland. Labor are refusing to build dams for drinking water and instead plan to use treated recycled water for drinking water. I will speak more on that next year.

Labor destroy where One Nation would build.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Senator Watt. Minister, why is the Australian government no longer proceeding with construction of the Emu Swamp dam and pipeline located near Stanthorpe in our state of Queensland?

Senator Watt (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management): Thank you, Senator Roberts. I welcome a question about Queensland infrastructure from a Queensland senator on the other side of the chamber. It’s a shame people like Senator McGrath didn’t manage to get a question up about these important issues. Senator McGrath, of course, is just reduced to interjections, rather than asking serious questions about these matters.

The President: Senator Watt.

Opposition senators interjecting—

Senator Watt: You don’t want to hear that? You don’t want to hear about your failures on infrastructure? If you’ve heard what I’ve had to say this week, Senator Roberts, you’ll know that the infrastructure budget that we inherited from the coalition was hopelessly overblown. There was a budget blowout of $33 billion.

Senator Birmingham: I rise on a point of order. This is actually a good example of the type of point of order that I made before. Senator Roberts asked a question about a particular infrastructure project, the Emu Swamp dam. That should not then be a licence for the minister to go off talking about infrastructure projects in general, or the former government in general. It was clearly a question specific to a particular project, and the minister should be drawn to answer on that project.

Senator Wong: On the point of order, I can recall many times when coalition ministers went much farther than 41 seconds in before they even got close to the question. I’d remind you of Senator Brandis. We all remember Senator Brandis when he was sitting in this chair.

Senator Birmingham: And I can remember you sitting in this chair and what you had to say.

Senator Wong: And I never got very far with that argument, but hope beats eternal.

Senator Rennick interjecting—

The President: Senator Rennick!

Senator Watt: Poor old Gerard. You’re not going to be here long, though, are you? Enjoy it while you’re here, Gerard.

Senator Henderson: That is really nasty, Senator Watt. You’re a nasty piece of work.

The President: Order across the chamber! Senator Henderson, I ask you to withdraw that remark.

Senator Henderson: Can I take a point of order?

The President: I’ve asked you to withdraw the remark, Senator Henderson.

Senator Henderson: I wish to make a point of order, President.

The President: Senator Henderson, I’ve asked you to withdraw your remark.

Senator Henderson: I withdraw, but can I take a point of order?

The President: If you sit down, I will entertain a point of order—as long it’s not on me asking you to withdraw. Thank you. Senator Henderson.

Senator Henderson: I rise on a point of order. Senator Watt just made a very uncalled for and offensive remark in relation to Senator Rennick, and I would ask him to withdraw it.

The President: Senator Henderson, I didn’t hear any remark. The chamber was incredibly disorderly at the time. All I can do is ask Senator Watt, if he made a personal reflection on Senator Rennick, to withdraw that.

Senator Watt: I’m happy to withdraw. Senator Rennick has a lot to say. I’m happy to withdraw.

The President: Senator Watt, before I call you again, I will draw your attention back to Senator Roberts’s question.

Senator Watt: Senator Roberts, I was explaining the basis for the decisions. The particular project that you’re talking about that won’t be proceeding is a road to a dam that is not proceeding. This government thinks that it’s a good idea, if you’re spending infrastructure money on a road, that it should be a road that leads to something that is actually happening and exists. That dam was a promise that was made by the former coalition government that never had the funding, wasn’t properly planned and is not proceeding. Senator Roberts, I know you’re someone who cares very much about the appropriate use of taxpayers’ funds. You would agree, I’m sure, that it’s not a good use of taxpayers’ funds to build roads that lead to dams that don’t exist and won’t exist.

But, Senator Roberts, I’m sure you’d also be pleased to have heard me talk about some of the projects in Queensland that are getting funding and that are only possible because of those sorts of decisions about the responsible allocation of funding. Because of that we can now fund the cost increase in the Rockhampton Ring Road project with an extra $348 million in addition to the money that the federal government had allocated. I know Central Queensland is an area that you’re interested in, Senator Roberts. By cutting projects that won’t exist and that aren’t needed, we can fund other things like that. (Time expired)

I was successful in having the project known as Iron Boomerang referred to a Senate Inquiry. Iron Boomerang is a railway that is really a shopping cart on rails — bringing iron ore, rare earths and agricultural product from West Australia to North Queensland for easy export to markets around the world.

The iron ore will be combined with beautiful Queensland coal in a steel park in Queensland for domestic use, and for export to Asia and the Americas. The trains will then return to Western Australia loaded with coal, where another steel mill in the Pilbara will make steel for export to the subcontinent, the Middle East and Europe.

Estimates predict this project could add $200 billion (10%) to Australia’s GDP creating 50,000+ breadwinner jobs, while securing the nations’ future.

The Committee found in favour of the project and instructed Infrastructure Australia to contact the project sponsors to get started.

In today’s Senate Estimate session, Infrastructure Australia had the hide to say they ignored the request of the Senate Committee. As a result, this nation-building, jobs-rich project has not progressed. Watch this space!

I joined Nathan Birch, the Host of No BS with Birchy, to discuss with him the reasons the government are increasing immigration to Australia and what are the proposed strategies to rebuild Australia on a national level.

Australia has entered a per capita recession although total GDP is still going up thanks to the government’s favourite Ponzi scheme — immigration. How is Australia going to provide homes and basic services for the one million new arrivals this year? Homes don’t get built that fast and we are already in a deficit of one million homes before these new arrivals.

I know from listening to constituents that life is getting harder with food, household bills including electricity and gas, housing and health care the biggest issues.

This government doesn’t care about everyday Australians – they only care about their globalist population and energy agenda, no matter how many Australians it hurts.

Immigration artificially inflates the economy as the money these people bring with them is spent, then the taxpayers are left with a massive bill for the housing, transport, schools, hospitals, police, fire stations and all the other government-funded infrastructure that is required for so many new arrivals.

Bringing in so many people in such a short period of time puts pressure on the price of food and housing in particular.

The solution is simple; it just takes honesty and guts. (1) abandon unaffordable United Nations 2050 Net Zero pipedreams that are driving up energy costs and with that, the price of everything else. (2) cut immigration to net zero (one person in for each person that leaves, equal to about 150,000 per annum) until our essential services and housing ability catches up with the existing Australian population.

Look after those already here before adding more. It’s common sense.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia who listens to constituents, I know life is getting worse for you and that this government doesn’t care. Australia has entered a per capita recession. The total GDP is still going up on paper. Technically, the government can say that we aren’t in a recession, yet on average the gross domestic product per Australian went backwards. That’s a per capita recession. You are not imagining it; life is getting far worse on average for the entire country. This is not news to anyone who has recently paid a grocery docket or a power bill or tuned in to hear Philip Lowe—whether or not the Reserve Bank is going to make their lives even harder this month. It is news to the Albanese government, though, because they are more interested in telling everyone to vote for the Voice than in doing something to fix the cost of living.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has confirmed what we already knew: on average, life is only getting tougher, far tougher for Australians. The major cause of Australia’s per capita recession is the UN 2050 net-zero policies that are putting a chokehold on our country. This fact is one of many that exposes the lie that wind and solar are cheapest sources of electricity. With more wind, solar and batteries on the grid than ever in history, power prices have never been higher. This is mirrored around the world in countries adopting solar and wind.

The record expensive power bills bite more than once, not only when Australians hand over more money than ever to their electricity and gas companies. Power prices feed into nearly every level and part of our lives. Without cheap power, manufacturers can’t produce the products we want and need at a reasonable price; farmers can’t afford to pump the water that irrigates crops and keeps cattle alive; shops can’t afford to keep the lights on and the doors open. So you don’t just pay the price of the climate net-zero pipedream once when your power bill; you pay for it again and again and again in every other bill as well.

It’s irrefutable; life is getting worse for Australians, who are all having to make tougher and tougher choices around the dinner table. There has never been more proof Australians can’t afford the UN 2050 net-zero pipedream. This is leading to huge cracks in our economy. Everyday businesses are becoming insolvent. The trend for retail spending—usually good indicator of whether households are feeling the pinch—is negative. The average cost of housing as a proportion disposal income is at 20.1 per cent, up from almost 16.5 per cent only a few years ago. The lowest-fifth of earners who hold a mortgage are spending on average nearly two-thirds of their disposal income on their loan—two-thirds of their disposal income on a house loan. All this means in real terms that our economy is getting worse for Australians yet that isn’t showing up on the total GDP, which records the amount of activity in the economy. This is where the government are using their favourite Ponzi scheme, mass immigration, to cover the cracks.

Listen carefully. When you let more immigrants into the country, they have to spend money on the same things we all have to like food, housing, transport, energy. All of this spending counts towards our total gross domestic product. If the total gross domestic product goes down, we enter a recession, which is an embarrassing look for the government. It’s a pretty simple equation for the Albanese government: more immigrants equals more spending, which equals the total gross domestic product going up, and the government can say, ‘We are not in an official recession.’ That’s why they’re doing it, and bugger the cost to individuals. At the same time, life continues to get worse for Australians—smaller amounts of gross domestic product growth and our limited housing services have to be shared with hundreds of thousands of new immigrants. That’s the per capita recession. With more people, demand increases and prices increase even more.

The Albanese Labor government expects to increase our net immigration to 715,000 people over two years. That is the size of the entire Gold Coast-Tweed Heads area or 1½ Canberras arriving in just two years. Every arrival will need a bed. Every arrival will need a roof over their head. Where does the Albanese Labor government expect them to live? To which one of our overfilled schools will children go? To which overflowing hospital will they go when they get sick? The Albanese government does not care about the answers to these questions, as long as they can say, ‘We’re not in technical recession.’ Bugger the cost to people—their lives.

The solutions to the cost-of-living crisis are clear. They will just take some guts and some honesty. Abandon unaffordable climate UN 2050 net-zero pipedreams and cut immigration to zero until our essential services and housing catch up.

The Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023 will gut investment in infrastructure.

It’s PEOPLE that build a nation. What do they need? They need the infrastructure in place to build upon. This supposedly independent bill proposes to review any previous government infrastructure project that has not yet had spades in the ground with the purpose of stopping previous government commitments. This bill guts the Infrastructure Australia board, reducing the number from 12 people who know about infrastructure and business to three people for whom there is no requirement to know anything about infrastructure at all.

This bill requires Infrastructure Australia to take account of government policy. Where there is expertise, it will no doubt be in solar, wind and battery backup, because this is the point of the bill: more taxpayers’ money sacrificed on a pointless quest to save the world from cyclical, natural climate variation—natural warming and cooling cycles.

By facilitating the destruction of native Australian forests and replacing them with industrial wind and solar landscapes energy prices are inevitably forced up. The energy scarcity from ‘renewables’ destroys employment in small and medium businesses and contributing to a massive transfer of wealth from everyday Australians to billionaire climate carpetbaggers.

To guarantee Australia’s power supply, we only need to build coal fired power stations using new technology that captures the carbon dioxide and turns those into useful products, fertiliser, fuel and hydrogen. This is new technology. This new technology provides clean energy to meet Net Zero targets while providing reliable baseload power at a fraction of the cost of solar and wind.

I don’t give a damn about the UN’s Net Zero targets, but here’s a way of doing it productively. It is a solution that should be supported across this Parliament. Yet these hypocritical Net Zero vandals will not admit that transition is a disaster, harming everyday Australians and will never deliver cheap, reliable energy.

One hundred years ago our country’s per person income was the world’s highest – number one! We can return to that number one spot. All it requires is freedom and infrastructure.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak to the Infrastructure Australia Amendment (Independent Review) Bill 2023—supposedly independent! This bill proposes to review any previous government infrastructure project that has not yet had spades in the ground, to stop previous government commitments. This bill guts the Infrastructure Australia board, reducing the number from 12 people who know about infrastructure and business to three people for whom there is no requirement to know anything about infrastructure—nothing. I expect the government to appoint three bureaucrats who appreciate that advancement in the Public Service is based on giving the government whatever it wants to hear. To call that an impartial board is a joke.

This bill requires Infrastructure Australia to take account of government policy. Where there is expertise, it will no doubt be in solar, wind and battery backup, because this is the point of the bill: more taxpayers’ money sacrificed on a pointless quest to save the world from cyclical, natural climate variation—natural warming and cooling cycles. This bill will facilitate the destruction of native Australian forests and replace them with industrial wind and solar landscapes. These are parasitic misinvestments forcing up energy prices and, as a result of energy scarcity, destroying employment in small and medium businesses and contributing to a massive transfer of wealth from everyday Australians to billionaire climate carpetbaggers.

An amendment from Senator David Pocock will force this exact outcome. The bill ensures every project must have a sponsor, meaning Infrastructure Australia can’t advance its own projects. Good ideas aren’t always commercial or may be so large that a project sponsor risks bankruptcy to do the homework to advance the project to the funding stage. In this case, Infrastructure Australia should be allowed to step in and develop an initial business case with the expectation that, should the project proceed, their investment would be recouped using private Australian capital. It’s fair to say that the Future Fund needs to contribute much more towards growing our national infrastructure. Snowy 2.0 is a salutary warning about what happens when the government takes a project through to the decision stage first and does the maths later and then rubs out the maths. The process behind Snowy 2.0 should never happen again, and both sides of parliament have been culpable.

The bill requires Infrastructure Australia to take account of government policy. It’s interesting to note some excellent amendments moved in the other place, the House of Representatives, designed to put commercial expertise into the bill while excluding conflicts of interest. Those amendments all failed. I have circulated a committee-stage amendment that Independent MP Dai Le originally moved to require the disclosure of conflicts of interest. Why wouldn’t anyone want that? How can a government do a bill like this, which may spend $100 billion over 10 years, and not be worried about conflicts of interest? I’ve spoken in the last few days about the negative influence of foreign investment funds on government policy. I can see nothing in this bill that would stop these predatory billionaire funds using this bill for their own interests.

Other amendments that were not and still would not be supported are as follows. The first is an amendment to introduce a cost-benefit analysis for any project over $100 million. Apparently, the government doesn’t want cost-benefit analysis on investment projects, no doubt because there isn’t a solar, wind or big battery project in the country that would pass the cost-benefit analysis—not one. David Littleproud MP asked for one of the commissioners to have substantial experience in rural and regional Australia. The Albanese government stopped that amendment from passing. The same happened to amendments improving transparency and reporting to parliament. They don’t want transparency and reporting to parliament. I know every opposition will talk about transparency before they get elected and then, upon election, make transparency worse, which is exactly what this government is doing. The Albanese government seems worse than most at breaking their election promises and killing transparency.

Senator Rice proposed an amendment to make infrastructure more social since we are all going to be stuck in our 15-minute cities—or ‘prisons’ to use a more accurate term. Not if One Nation can help it! I do thank Senator Rice for her amendment around continuity of existing projects. In this regard, the legislation is poorly worded. It’s true that some of the Infrastructure Australia projects which hold so much promise are lagging. Many Queensland projects, like the Urannah dam, have not advanced since April 2022. There’s no doubt that this is to prepare these projects for abolition. And rather than Minister King being blamed, the independent Infrastructure Australia will be blamed for implementing government policy—as this bill requires.

Infrastructure minister King has terminated the Hells Gates dam north of Charters Towers and the Saego dam at Hughenden. This is yet another clear indication of the Albanese government hollowing out the bush and delivering our best farmland to foreign multinational superannuation funds and merchant banks for the benefit of foreign interests and to the exclusion of everyday Australians. Minister Plibersek’s water policy changes introduced this week prove just how much this government hates the bush. The proposed measures will destroy rural communities. Country towns have a critical mass for population and services, below which a town is not viable. This government will wipe many Australian towns off the map and return that land to Gaia. The major banks know this already and they’re acting like rats leaving a sinking ship with their branch closures. In effect, this Labor government is hollowing out the bush and using that money to line the pockets of climate carpetbaggers in order to buy votes off the Teals and the Greens—city votes.

The east-west railway and multifunction corridor with associated steel parks have been progressed to the next stage at Infrastructure Australia following One Nation initiating a Senate inquiry. I look forward to the new board continuing those projects. Real infrastructure—dams, railroads, baseload power stations and ports—will never be built outside the capital cities because the government wants to hollow out the bush. It is hollowing out the bush. That’s why real infrastructure will not be built outside the capital cities. The only infrastructure the bush will get is unwanted infrastructure: wind turbines, solar panels and a spider’s web of high-voltage power lines growing like a cancer across rural Australia. And, like a cancer, these infernal things kill productive farmland, destroy native forest and destroy the native fauna that used to live there. They’re killing pristine creeks. No-one in the bush wants these kamikaze, parasitic misinvestments.

There’s support from city folks who are eager to feel like worthy climate warriors while driving their petrol cars and living in freestanding houses, taking overseas holidays and dialling their air-conditioning up to the max. It’s all justified because they support the campaign ‘saving the planet’ with solar and wind power—as long as they’re built in someone else’s backyard.

Infrastructure is supposed to make life easier, not harder. Infrastructure is designed to add to our productive capacity and to grow the pie for all Australians. We hear so often that workers don’t deserve pay rises because they’ve stopped working hard and productivity has declined. Let me ask: what happened to the government working harder? What happened to infrastructure that makes the internet faster, freight-forwarding faster, electricity cheaper and products like timber, cement and steel readily available and accessible? This is what makes workers more productive: better tools and better supplies. Make no mistake: under this Albanese government the lives of everyday Australians will be harder, pay packets will not go as far and opportunities for advancement will become harder and harder to find.

One Nation’s Queensland infrastructure program includes building the east-west railroad across the Top End, from Western Australia to North Queensland, to provide market access for the extraction and grazing industries. But that’s not all it will do. These industries frequently have Aboriginal owners or employ a high proportion of Aboriginal staff. And there’s tourism. One Nation will build a multipurpose corridor in the same footprint as that railway line to bring power, water, the internet and local train travel to Aboriginal and rural communities. We would build the steel parks and take more of the $2 trillion steel market for Australians, growing our economy with breadwinner jobs and solid foreign exchange earnings. We would build the Great Dividing Range project: a dam, hydro and irrigation project to deliver environmentally-friendly economic growth to North Queensland—G power will unleash North Queensland! One Nation will build the Emu Swamp Dam, the Urannah irrigation project, the Big Rocks Weir and the Hughenden Irrigation Project. One Nation will run the inland rail from Five Star into Queensland, along the Moonie Highway alignment and then across to Miles, then through Wandoan to Banana, to terminate at the port of Gladstone. We will connect the port of Gladstone to the east-west rail line to create a national rail route that will take hundreds of thousands of heavy truck movements of the roads while improving transit times. We will not build the Pioneer pumped hydro project, as this not only destroys the environment of the Pioneer Valley but is also a complete fraud on the part of Premier Palaszczuk. This project is a fake big idea to win votes in the city in the next election and take attention off the Mackay Base Hospital’s many problems that the government has caused. It will also waste millions in feasibility studies that will ultimately showed this is a really stupid idea—a dishonest idea.

To guarantee Australia’s power supply, we need only to build coal-fired power stations using new technology. This new technology shows the public the hypocrisy of their renewable lobby. They criticise coal as being dirty so that industry develops the technology that captures the carbon dioxide and turns it into useful projects—fertiliser, fuel and hydrogen. This new technology allows clean energy to meet our net zero targets providing reliable baseload power at a fraction of the cost of solar and wind, I don’t give a damn about UN net-zero targets, but if you want to meet them, here is a way of doing it productively. This should be supported across this parliament, yet these net zero vandals will not admit the transition is a disaster harming everyday Australians and will never deliver cheap, reliable energy. Why are you doing it? Why? What’s your agenda? I suggest it is to orchestrate a power shortage in transport and production in order to usher in a new era of Soviet-style control. You have already shown it—the complete subjugation of Australia, as has been occurring since the signing of the UN’s Lima declaration in 1975 by Prime Minister Whitlam under Labor, ratified the following year by Liberal Prime Minister Fraser.

Labor destroys; One Nation will build. One Nation will build so that people can build. Human progress and economic prosperity depend on human initiative, and that needs opportunity and support. Opportunity and support flourish on freedom and on infrastructure for businesses to grow. Small businesses rely on infrastructure and start growing. There are eight keys to human progress in my belief. The first is freedom—the freedom to come up with ideas, exchange ideas, implement ideas. The second is rule of law—we have seen that smashed in the last three years. The third is stable, solid, sustainable, continuing governance—a Constitution. We have that. We have one of the world’s best Constitutions. Number four is securing of property rights, which were stolen by the Howard-Anderson Liberal and National Party government from 1996 through to 2007. They stole farmers’ property rights, the key to human progress. The fifth thing is strong families—they are being destroyed by policies put in place by the United Nations since 1975 with the Family Law Act—the slaughterhouse of the nation.

Cheap energy is fundamental and the most significant factor for human progress—affordable, accessible, reliable, dependable, secure and stable. A taxation system that is efficient—not inefficient as the current system is. Lastly is honest money—we need to return to a people’s bank in this country. The Commonwealth Bank, when it was the people’s bank early last century, was responsible for human progress in this country—dramatic progress. We had only five million people, but the Commonwealth Bank took care of building our country into a big country. Australia 120 and 110 years ago had the highest per capita income in the world.

To build a nation, people need infrastructure. People build a nation. People need infrastructure to build a nation. Australia has done this—we rose to number one in the world. That is instead of what Labor is doing now, which is a complete subjugation of Australia. Labor destroys; One Nation will build. The people of Australia have already proven we can build, and they have done it many times.

The Iron Boomerang inquiry was initiated by One Nation because we saw the project’s undeniable benefits.

This 3,300 km transcontinental railway represents significant advantages to all Australians across the top end by connecting Central Queensland with the Pilbara in Western Australia. It will increase our GDP by hundreds of billions of dollars from the steel alone, without counting the concrete, fertiliser, and other by-products.

This project offers a boon to Australia. One that is tangible and has details backing it up. One that makes money — doesn’t just cost money. One that keeps wealth in Australia rather than sending it offshore to further enrich foreign interests. One that will truly improve the lives of indigenous Australians with a multipurpose corridor bringing utilities, transport and tourism to their communities.

I look forward to seeing this project proceed further. The Iron Boomerang a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for this government to make a difference for all of Australia.

Transcript

As a servant to the many varied people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak to the Rural, Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry’s report into the project known as Iron Boomerang. One Nation’s Senate motion initiated this inquiry because of this project’s undeniable benefit to all of Australia. I thank the committee and the secretariat for their work, and I thank the witnesses for attending. This is a complicated project, and the committee and the secretariat have done a great job of processing the information presented across different hearings. Project lead Shane Condon has made this his life’s work, and Australia must be forever in his debt for the vision, application and sheer determination that he has shown. One Nation is fully supportive of the report’s recommendations.

As this project moves forward to a new era, I must remark that Project Iron Boomerang is probably a misnomer. It does consist of a 3,300-kilometre transcontinental railroad with heavy-duty axle capacity connecting existing rail networks in the iron ore region of the Pilbara to the existing coal rail networks in Central Queensland. Iron ore will be transported from Western Australia to Queensland, and those carriages will then be loaded with coal to transport back to the west, hence the boomerang in the name.

Steel mills at either end combine these minerals into steel—the world’s highest-quality steel at the world’s lowest price. Steel is a huge industry that helped build the wealth of this nation, and will do so again. It is also building the wealth of many nations right now. Steel is then exported as container traffic backload through ports in northern Queensland and Western Australia, offering faster and cheaper market access for our steel as against our competitors.

The fundamental benefit of this system is to reduce freight to the smallest possible footprint, economic as well as carbon dioxide for those who think that’s important. Less coal will be exported across the world in bulk oil carriers that burn 200 tonnes of heavy diesel oil a day, carriers that then return empty while burning another 100 tonnes of oil a day on the way with huge reductions in carbon dioxide for those who believe that we need to cut human production of carbon dioxide. Less iron ore and dirt will be exported from Western Australia across the world, saving the heavy diesel consumption and again reducing carbon dioxide production and the cost. Instead, ore is transported a shorter distance in a gas electric train offering a huge competitive advantage for Australian steel and a huge benefit for the environment—the real environment, as well as that carbon dioxide sky-gas nonsense.

The committee rightly identified the railroad and the steel development are separate issues. It’s possible, as Senator Canavan has pointed out, that ships can operate the boomerang trip in first phase of the project, and we’ve had that confirmed since. The southern route is slightly longer than a direct rail link but will cost less at around $10 a tonne versus $40 a tonne for the railroad. Having said that, the railroad will become the cheaper option after the volume of ore and coal being moved exceeds 150 million tonnes a year. This point will be reached with the second stage of steel production, which is to increase the mills from 10 to 20.

The railroad carries many other benefits the committee did not hear in evidence that East West Line Parks may like to correct during their discussions with Infrastructure Australia. Grazing interests have expressed a strong desire to use the line to transport cattle from the remote cattle stations to the east and then to markets overseas. That trip is currently done using road, which puts the animals under pressure and causes a costly reduction in body weight of around 15 per cent. Rail offers a smoother, faster ride and a reduction in body weight of only five per cent. That’s a benefit all round.

Aboriginal interests own many remote cattle stations employing Aboriginal workers. This rail will represent a significant benefit to the Aboriginal community right across the Top End. Agricultural interests would use the rail line to take production from the Ord River irrigation area to market in the east, reducing their freight costs by 50 per cent or even more. The line will open stranded asset rare-earth mines that hold mineral reserves we need to make the electric cars, batteries, windmills and solar panels necessary for net zero. Hmm. The line will open the currently inaccessible East Pilbara, an area containing significant mineral wealth, while adding additional life to existing mines across the Pilbara.

Environmentalists oppose mining and oppose expanding the steel industry at the same time as calling for a transition from petrol to electric cars and the covering of our continent in steel transmission towers and steel wind turbines. Environmentalists can, of course, use their favoured building material—compressed rainbow unicorn farts. The rest of us though use steel. Project Iron Boomerang is not unique. The 2,300-kilometre Tarcoola to Darwin railway was completed 10 years ago. It was completed in five years at a cost of just $3.5 billion across similar terrain. This is not complicated engineering. Railroads like this are being built overseas, and a shorter railroad was recently completed in the Pilbara. We can do this.

A second aspect of the east-west railroad is the multifunction corridor that would normally be built alongside a railway such as this. For a small additional cost in relative terms, this could be upgraded to hold a fibre-optic cable, water and power trunk lines. These, in turn, could provide town water, power and the internet to regional and remote communities, mostly Aboriginal, right across the Top End. Sidings along the route would allow for a local passenger or freight train to improve transport and freight services to these same remote communities.

Tourism is another likely benefit. The Ghan can expand to offer what would be one of the world’s ‘must do’ trips, offering real employment to the Aboriginal community. I hope that Infrastructure Australia pursues inquiry into this aspect of the project. One Nation would love to see homes built with power, water and the internet for remote Aboriginal communities. Iron Boomerang holds that future for these communities. I hope that Infrastructure Australia reviews this most exciting aspect of the project.

The committee has recommended a separate inquiry be held into the steel component of Project Iron Boomerang. The terms of reference are well chosen, with one suggestion. During many meetings, as part of promoting this project, I met with an Australian company that has technology which captures carbon dioxide from the steel mill’s steam stack and combines that output with seawater to produce valuable commodities such as ammonia and ethanol. The process is self-funding. These building blocks can be turned into fertiliser, AdBlue, ethanol and many other products that Australia currently imports. These are not just by-products; they’re products essential to our national security. I hope the steel inquiry hears evidence on how a commercially proven coal-to-hydrogen process can power an electric arc furnace—’green steel’, if you want to use that term. There are, though, many questions around this process that’s years from commercial reality, especially in terms of quality; it’s brittle at the moment.

World steel demand is expected to remain at two per cent growth over the medium term, with the new developing crescent of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan taking up the slack from maturing Chinese, USA and European markets. Indonesia is constructing a new national capital, with construction extending to 2040. This alone will consume the output from our Project Iron Boomerang phase 1 steel mills. If we’re to wind back exports of coal for power in the name of climate change—and I hope we’re not; One Nation strongly opposes this—substituting the use of coal for power with the use of coal for steel would provide continuity of employment for the coal industry, something that should keep unions happy.

Another economic benefit of the steel mills is fly ash, a by-product of steel manufacture when the power source is coal. Fly ash can replace 20 to 30 per cent of the cement in concrete. Project Iron Boomerang will result in the construction of new concrete plants to utilise the steel parks’ by-products. As even the Greens would agree, you can’t do wind power without concrete, and Australia does not have enough concrete for the job. The world steel market is worth A$2 trillion a year. Iron Boomerang will increase Australia’s GDP by hundreds of billions of dollars, just from the steel, let alone the concrete, fertiliser, ammonia and other by-products.

The committee correctly identified the potential national security benefits of the railway, the steel parks and the port upgrades this project will deliver. The expectation is for a naval maintenance base in North Queensland to service the United States Pacific fleet. The railway offers access to parts of this country where access is currently problematic. I note the Maritime Union of Australia is advancing their rebuilding the Australian shipping and maritime industries proposal to expand the Australian shipping fleet. Project Iron Boomerang steel mills will produce four-metre wide slabs instead of the normal two-metre wide slabs. When used to produce railway rolling stock and ships, this results in half the number of welds and joins, producing a cheaper, stronger and faster product. I hope the union will participate in the steel inquiry and look for ways to breathe new life into Australia’s heavy manufacturing industries, currently languishing after decades of planned decay, a decay that has cost breadwinner jobs and economic security.

With the attractive markets, returns and many by-products, it’s no surprise private industry and net private investors are waiting ready to fund and construct this project. There is, though, a problem: private investors don’t trust our government, and after debacles like Adani who could blame them? At some point the federal government is going to have to put their hands into their pockets to fund the final business case, not because the proponents can’t fund it, but because their backers will not let them. For this project to proceed further, the government must demonstrate skin in the game. I look forward to the inquiries that have been recommended in this report, and I look forward to Infrastructure Australia advancing this project. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Albanese government. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned. Consideration resumed of the motion.

The Queensland Government owns most of the major ports up and down the Queensland coast. Just when a private company was planning on building cheap ports throughout Queensland, the Queensland Government effectively made it illegal to develop ports outside the ones they already own.

In the last budget the Albanese Government cancelled the funding for the North Queensland Water Infrastructure Authority and for the two projects they were running – the Hells Gates Dam and the Hughenden Irrigation Project (including the Saego Dam). Clearly there will be no dams built under a government Anthony Albanese leads. This is a massive blow to North Queensland. These projects represented billions of dollars of economic growth, provided bread-winner jobs across agriculture, mining, and tertiary processing.

This leaves the Urannah Dam as the last dam proposal in Queensland, and I am sure there is no intention on the part of either the Palaszczuk or Albanese Governments to build those either.

Labor are hollowing out the bush. One Nation will get these projects moving again.

Wherever you look, the Government just gets in the way of Australia’s success.

Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts, do you have questions of Infrastructure Australia before we get to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility?

Senator Roberts: Yes, I do. Thank you for appearing today. Does Infrastructure Australia have any views on what roadblocks there are to port development in Queensland? I know you wouldn’t be prepared. Off the top of your head.

Mr Copp: We’re not aware of any particular barriers.

Senator Roberts: Have you done any work or any reviews on the effect of the Sustainable Ports Development Act 2015? It is Queensland legislation.

Mr Copp: No.

Senator Roberts: It appears to me that legislation is a significant roadblock to ports in our state. I don’t know if you can even build a boat ramp under that law. It completely restricts—I have formed that view after listening to an expert on this; I will explain more in a minute—port development all the way up the Queensland coast except for Gladstone, Townsville, Hay Point and Abbott Point. Do you know who owns those ports?

Mr Copp: No.

Senator Roberts: The Queensland government.

Senator McDonald: It’s part of a broader strategy. It is a Queensland government strategy from a long time ago.

Senator Roberts: They own the ports. I had a meeting with a business in my state recently based on the Gold Coast. The name of the business is SEATRANSPORT. It works internationally. It is a magnificent little firm on the Gold Coast. It is a truly incredible business, humbly creating some of the most incredible boats I’ve ever seen. They showed me a plan they had to create mini ports all the way up the Queensland coast, dozens of them. It is private investment. They have already been operating one successfully in the Gulf for 30 years. I think there are others around the country. From what I could see, it would literally unlock Far North Queensland, especially in agriculture. The Queensland government passed the Sustainable Ports Development Act that said no more ports in Queensland except those that I just listed that the state government owns. This is blatant evidence that productive infrastructure investment is being squashed so a state government can maintain a monopoly and control. Surely don’t we have to consider that an impediment to infrastructure in Australia?

Mr Copp: We haven’t done any sort of analysis of that legislation. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for that. My staff asked this committee yesterday. They said I could ask these questions either in infrastructure or in regional infrastructure. When I got to regional infrastructure, I couldn’t get the answers. They said to go to Infrastructure Australia and the North Queensland Water Infrastructure Authority, which is now tomorrow, I understand, in the environment committee.

Chair: I’ve never been in that committee, so I can’t help you.

Senator Roberts: Do you have a list of every infrastructure project that is started or underway in Queensland outside the south-east region—in other words, regional Queensland?

Mr Copp: Mr Brogan might be able to discuss that. We have a piece of work called market capacity, which may answer that question.

Mr Brogan: We collect data from the Queensland government and other governments across Australia.

Senator Roberts: Including federal?

Mr Brogan: Including federal. It indicates information as simple as when a project would start and total investment cost, but no more detail than that, for the purposes of understanding market capacity constraints—supply and demand constraints in the market.

Senator Roberts: The labour for construction work?

Mr Brogan: Correct. One hundred per cent. That’s correct.

Senator Roberts: Could we get a list of that, please, for Queensland projects outside the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Brisbane?

Mr Brogan: That data is collected with the governments through an agreement that is in place to formalise the confidentiality of the data supplied. I understand your question. I think we have to take on notice what we can provide to respect that confidential information.

Senator Roberts: I don’t want the details. I just want a list of the projects worth over $100 million or more outside the south-east metropolitan area.

Mr Copp: We’ll take that on notice.

Senator Roberts: Thank you.

Chair: We are scheduled to finish at 11 o’clock.

Senator Roberts: I have one more question, maybe two. There are two specific projects. One is the Cairns Western Arterial Road. The website for the department says that Infrastructure Australia has not yet assessed the business case. Has it?

Mr Copp: No.

Senator Roberts: It has not?

Mr Copp: No. It has not.

Senator Roberts: What about the Isaac and Whitsunday regions productive water supply, incorporating the Urannah Dam proposal? Do you know where we are on that?

Mr Tucker: We have a proposal on our priority list. Again, it is stage 1. It recognises that is there is an opportunity to provide high productive water in that region. We’ve had some engagement with the proponents of the Urannah Dam over the last couple of years, but a business case hasn’t been brought forward to us for detailed assessment.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. This is my last question. I haven’t seen the Queensland Great Dividing Range scheme on any list of infrastructure. Am I able to give this to Infrastructure Australia?

Chair: You would like to table it?

Senator Roberts: Yes. It’s a wonderful project. It goes over old ground, but it is entirely new. The concept is old but the project is new. With a proven business case, it provides four million megawatt hours of hydropower, which is 11 times Snowy Hydro 2.0. It is powering $2.5 billion in primary production every year at a cost of just $22 billion, which is less than Snowy Hydro. I think it is important that Infrastructure Australia is aware of this kind of proposal. It is being led by some people with track records on infrastructure.

Mr Copp: Thank you, Senator.

The Iron Boomerang rail project could be one of the largest pieces of regional infrastructure Australia has seen.

It proposes building a rail line linking the abundant coalfields in Queensland with the iron ore deposits in Western Australia and establishing steel mills at either end. It would make Australia one of the leading steel producers in the world and turbocharge the economy.

Given the enormous potential being investigated, and the fact that a Senate Inquiry is currently underway, I can’t believe that this Government doesn’t seem to be interested.

High Speed Rail! It’s a great slogan for politicians in election campaigns, but it just doesn’t work for Australia.

Our cities are too small, the distances too long and geography too complex to build it cheaply enough.

Our money is much better spent on other infrastructure like dams, power stations and a national rail circuit that’s up to scratch.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I speak to the High Speed Rail Authority Bill 2022—or, as I prefer to call it, the ‘elect Chris Minns as New South Wales Premier bill’. It’s not a coincidence that this bill provides for the national high-speed rail network proposal to start with just one section: between Sydney and Newcastle—just in time for the New South Wales state election in the coming March. Oh, the photo opportunities and announcements! I can see them now—for example, ‘Vote Labor and we will get you to work in 40 minutes.’ What dishonesty. What treachery.

I appreciate that that the Central Coast and Hunter are now dormitory suburbs of Sydney. Every day, more than 100,000 residents use rail and road on their daily trek to Sydney for work. High-speed would be a wonderful way to make that trip. One problem with making that promise is that high-speed rail on that route is never going to happen. It’s impossible. Here’s why. The route consist of mountain ranges, massive sandstone cliffs and waterways. Unless the High Speed Authority sprinkles magic dust, there is no way it will make a straight, flat track with the solid foundations necessary to sustain high-speed rail through the Hawksbury, Central Coast and Lower Hunter.

The current discussion involves sending high-speed rail along the existing alignment through the Central Coast, through the Gosford waterfront, through residential areas to Wyong and then via YE into the lower Hunter. The area’s geography makes any other route almost impossible, at least without substantial environmental impact, meaning massive, long tunnels and cuttings through national parks and equally long and heavily engineered bridges across the frequent waterways and soft ground.

Anything can be done at a cost, although the cost here will ensure a white elephant for taxpayers that will never recover the investment. I shudder to think how much the tickets will cost, certainly more than working families can afford, the families who are being targeted with this false, deceptive promise.

While Australia does need a modern rail network connecting our capital cities, airports and major ports, high-speed rail is not the answer. The federal government last examined the possibility of building a 1,748-kilometre high-speed rail link from Brisbane to Melbourne in 2013, when the cost was estimated at $114 billion, with the Sydney-to-Newcastle section costed at $17.9 billion. At that time, by the way, the Inland Rail was costed at $4 billion. It’s now $20 billion. That’s five times higher. So I would expect this same inaccuracy factor would apply to the fast rail, costing out the Sydney-to-Hunter section alone at $90 billion in today’s dollars.

The Grattan Institute has found high-speed rail projects have little chance of passing the cost-benefit test based on the typical discount rate used for transport infrastructure of about seven per cent. Marion Terrill, the current director of the Grattan Institute’s Transport and City Program, has said:

Australia is just not suited to high-speed rail because our cities are too small and too far apart.

Too small means the passenger volume will not be sufficient to justify the capital expenditure, leading to prohibitive fares or massive government subsidies—or, most likely, both.

To illustrate this point, when New South Wales XPT trains were purchased in 1982, the intention was to create fast rail in New South Wales. The XPTs are designed to travel at just 150 kilometres per hour. So what stopped fast rail at that time was the inability to build a track capable of supporting those speeds. This is essential for safety and reliability. Our rail lines curve around too much. The Great Dividing Range provides serious hurdles to fast rail, and our waterways along the coast complicate the flat sections that we do have. For clarity, fast rail is generally speeds up to 150 kilometres per hour. High-speed rail is 250 kilometres per hour to 300 kilometres per hour. Fast rail requires entirely different and substantially more expensive rolling stock and track.

It may be feasible with a large government investment to upgrade existing rail lines on the Sydney-to-Hunter route to travel express services at fast-rail pace rather than high-speed rail pace. One Nation would strongly support immediate feasibility studies on upgrading the Sydney-to-Hunter line to fast rail since New South Wales already has the rolling stock.

Senator McKenzie will be moving an amendment to this bill that will introduce Productivity Commission oversight of proposals and a transparent reporting system. If this amendment is passed, this bill will gain the checks and balances it should have had all along, and One Nation will support it. Without those checks and balances, One Nation will oppose this bill. We have one flag, we are one community, we are one nation, and we don’t lie for any reason—certainly not to the public to get votes.