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The government wants to drive us off a cliff as we speed towards Net-Zero dictates from the un-elected United Nations and World Economic Forum.

None of it is based on proper data and all the evidence we have is that it will destroy our energy grid and our economy.

With inflation re-emerging, we have to put a stop to the billions being poured into climate policy making Australians pay more.

Transcript

Every time you see a wind turbine or an industrial solar complex, think one thing: your energy prices are going to increase. That’s what those things mean. We’ve been promised that energy prices will decrease, but wind turbines and industrial solar complexes mean higher prices for people, for families, for small businesses, for larger corporations and employers, for the whole community. And they mean trillions of dollars in waste in our economy. In every country around the world, as the percentage of solar and wind has increased, the cost of electricity has increased. That’s a fact—everywhere, consistent. And now, after nearly 30 years of pushing solar and wind, which started with John Howard’s renewable energy target, we see the ridiculous situation of the Labor government offering energy price relief. Why? Because they’re driving up the cost of energy to make it unaffordable; that’s why. So let’s have a look at why. Let’s see why killing the environment in the name of supposedly saving it is costing us so much. Let’s turn to the terms of the motion for an inquiry. So many people want us to have an inquiry, not just rural people but urban people, because they’re worried about the cost. This is what the inquiry is looking into: 

… the importance of ensuring that the National Electricity Grid has the capacity to provide a reliable and secure supply of energy to Australians as the economy transitions to new and more dispersed— 

and we’ll talk about that— 

methods of generations and storage, and acknowledging that transition will necessarily transgress on agricultural, Indigenous and environmental lands and marine environments … 

The environment and our productive capacity are suffering. 

I’ll cover some key concerns that are key to the inquiry because the uniparty has not thought about this—from when John Howard, the Liberal Prime Minister, started the renewable energy target to this ridiculous situation we’re in now. By the way, John Howard started that and did three other things, which we might have time to discuss, that laid the foundation for the crippling of our energy supply in this country. Six years after he was booted from office, he admitted that, on the matter of climate science, he is agnostic. He didn’t have the science. This whole thing is based not on science; it’s based on contradictions of science. 

Let’s start with solar and wind. The amount of steel needed per megawatt of electricity from a coal-fired power station is 35 tons. For wind turbines it’s 542 tons of steel. That’s 15 times as much. Straightaway, wind is suffering a cost penalty. It’s a huge cost burden. Then, when you look at the energy density of coal, it’s very high. It’s not as high as uranium, but it’s very high. For solar and wind, it’s very low. 

Secondly I see the government throwing barbs at the coalition, and well it should over aspects of its nuclear policy, but the government is accusing the opposition of uncosted policy. Where are your costs, government? Where are your costs on solar and wind? Where are your costs on solar and wind, Greens? We even see some solar and wind complexes, massive complexes in the Kennedy electorate in Queensland and in western Victoria, not connected to the grid. They have been built but not connected. That’s how much thought has gone into this. It’s bloody ridiculous. 

Solar and wind have an inherently high capital cost plus a low energy density, which means low energy production and very high cost per unit of electricity. Plus the amount of land needed for solar and wind is enormous. And then we see that the average capacity utilisation of solar and wind is 23 per cent. That’s less than a quarter of what the nameplate capacity is. Now we see the latest figures just released on wind, which show that it’s 21 per cent. That’s one-fifth of the capacity. What does that tell you? For a given capacity of a coal-fired power station, you’ll need a certain capacity of solar and wind. Multiply that by four, because you’re getting less than 25 per cent. Multiply it by five in the case of wind. Five times makes it prohibitive. Four times makes it prohibitive. Then think about this: at peak hour, when we need maximum electricity, the average utilisation and the average capacity is 10 per cent, which means that, to get the equivalent of that coal-fired power station, we need 10 times the solar and wind capacity—10 times. Then, for sizeable periods, we have the sun not shining brightly because of clouds or we have the wind drought. That means we need a further multiplication to make sure we can store up enough in energy and batteries. But the batteries to store that amount of wind and solar energy have never been thought of, never been considered and never been developed. It’s impossible. The cost if we don’t have them will be blackouts and outages in hospitals, businesses and family homes. 

Plus there are the transmission costs. Transmission costs, many years ago, used to be 49 per cent of the cost of the electricity bill. I don’t know what it is now, but it’s certainly substantial. Solar and wind have to be located a long way from the major metropolitan areas, which means straightaway that transmission costs are even higher than for a coal-fired power station, which can be located close to the metropolitan areas. Then, because of the dispersed nature of solar and wind, we have even more transmission lines. Then, because of the capacity factor that I just mentioned, we have even more transmission lines. This makes it prohibitive, not just in terms of the installation of solar and wind but also in terms of transmission lines. Plus, the transmission lines will barely be used because of the capacity of solar and wind not being utilised. And then we have the 15-to 20-year life, at best—12 to 15 years more likely—of solar and wind industrial complexes. That means that over the life of a coal-fired power station or a nuclear power station, they have to be replaced four times, so multiply the cost again by four. What have we multiplied it by so far? We’ve multiplied the cost by five, then by 10 and now by another four. Yet the CSIRO considers not one piece of that puzzle—not one piece. They say that it’s all sunk cost; just ignore it. 

That’s why solar and wind can compete. And they still need subsidies. Then you’ve got to add batteries and pumped hydro. Pumped hydro itself is an admission of failure. You cannot have pumped hydro without a disparity between peak hour prices and off-peak prices, and that’s due to the failure of the grid and solar and wind. And then we need firming, another cost, because coal, nuclear and hydro are stable, synchronous power supplies. Solar and wind are asynchronous—unstable—so they need firming. And they need backup gas or backup coal because solar and wind are unreliable. There’s a doubling. Look at the multiplication that we have got there. 

None of this is included in the GenCost report from the CSIRO. It assumes no transmission cost because they’ve already been built. That’s rubbish. We need far more new transmission lines. We have an inherently higher cost from solar and wind, plus low capacity, plus regional, plus dispersal, plus backup, plus stabilisation. Think about this: for a business, you need a stable, reliable, low-variation input. When variation occurs, it costs enormous amounts of money. At industrial and manufacturing plants, farmers are using backup, so they have to pay twice for their electricity. We also have a huge footprint in terms of land. Solar complexes and wind turbines use far more land and are far more scattered than a concentrated coal-fired power station or a nuclear power station. They’re taking up huge quantities of resources. The resource footprint of solar and wind is enormous.  

We have agricultural land being sterilised. We have poisons and toxins potentially going into the Brisbane water supply, into their drinking water—lead, cadmium—which feeds Brisbane, Beaudesert, Gold Coast, potentially Toowoomba, Ipswich, Logan and other areas in the south-east of Queensland. We also have the future cost yet to be added—Snowy 2.0.  By the way, when they first did the costings of Snowy 2.0, thanks to Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership and poor leadership, they forgot about the transmission lines. They forgot to add the transmission lines. Whoops! We better add a few more billion to that. Now look at it. It was originally slated for $2 billion. We could see this, and I’m not an energy expert. We could see it when Malcolm Turnbull first released it. We told them, and no-one took any notice. Now they’re putting in all these additional costs, and Snowy 2.0 is heading for $14 billion and perhaps $20 billion—if it moves! This is not about having an alternative energy supply; it’s about less energy and control of energy. 

We also have Mr Albanese and Mr Bowen, ‘Blackout Bowen’, talking about us being a renewable superpower. It means economic and environmental suicide, resource sterilisation, and displacement of Indigenous. No costings—a huge catastrophe! We’re talking about billions of dollars and impacts worth trillions of dollars. We must have this inquiry. They’re building in a high-cost overhead and a huge environmental legacy. When some of those farmers who are looking at the money now—some aren’t selling out, but some are selling out because of the money coming in—think about the environmental legacy. No bonds. The energy company owning the wind turbines and the solar complexes can just walk off and leave it. There’s no requirement to fix it. Farmers will pay for that. They’re already paying in many cases, as are rural towns, with the slow thrum, thrum, thrum of infrasound, which is proven harmful to humans. So they’re killing the environment to save it. We’re seeing human progress being reversed. 

The No. 1 message from the last 170 years since the industrial revolution started was that we have a higher standard of living and all the benefits that brings because of a relentless reduction in energy prices. What we’ve seen since John Howard come to power is a reversal of that. As energy prices increase, productivity falls, wealth falls and prosperity falls. We see a reversal of human progress. So what if we spend billions on solar and wind, what if it costs our economy trillions of dollars—and it will—and what if China does not? What happens then? Now do you get what’s going on? Now do you see it? 

I want to turn to two other points. As I said, John Howard introduced all the problems we’re seeing now: the Renewable Energy Target; the stealing of farmers’ property rights to comply with the UN Kyoto protocol; and the National Electricity Market, which is really a national electricity racket. He also introduced an emissions trading scheme as policy—not as fact, but as policy. That’s a carbon tax. He was the first major leader of a major party to have that. The CSIRO has never provided any empirical scientific data and logical scientific points that prove the need to cut carbon dioxide from human activity. The CSIRO admitted that to me when I held them accountable, and they gave me three presentations, each 2½ hours long. In the first presentation they admitted that they had never given the advice and had never said that carbon dioxide from human activity is a danger and needs to be cut. In the second presentation they gave me, they admitted that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented; they’ve happened before—many, many times. In fact, the scientific term for periods of high temperature is ‘climate optimum’, because they’re beneficial for humanity, for civilisation and for the environment. The temperatures are not unprecedented. 

The second point is that I’ve asked many government departments in this federal government for their basis of policy. To have a basis of policy you need to have the impact of carbon dioxide from human activity on some climate factor. No-one has given us that. We have amassed 24,000 datasets on climate and energy from around the world, from legally scraped websites and research institutions like the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, and we’ve never found any change in any climate factors at all, so there’s no basis for policy. You need that quantitative impact of carbon dioxide from human activity on a climate factor so that you can then study the alternatives, if you want to get rid of the carbon dioxide production. You’ve got to have that to track progress, but there’s none of that. There’s no basis for policy. We are flying blind. We’re heading for a cliff. 

Then we see there’s no environmental impact statement for the use of solar and wind—none at all. What impact is the energy we’re taking out of the wind going to have on our climate? What impact is it going to have on the natural environment? Yet they say that 0.03 per cent of the carbon dioxide is coming from humans, and 1.2 per cent of that from Australians. No impact quantified—the absurdity is enormous. And who will pay for all this mess? We, the people. You are foisting this on the people. We need an inquiry now. (Time expired) 

Australia’s real wages have collapsed to levels not seen since before 2010, wiping out 15 years of hard-earned pay rises. Both the Labor and Liberal governments have fueled this crisis.

While the government wastes billions on net zero projects and supports foreign companies, inflation continues to rise.

The solutions are simple: cut subsidies to foreign-owned, net zero parasites and use Australia’s oil, coal and gas for our benefit. Let farmers freely use their land to grow affordable food and adopt One Nation’s housing policies to get Australians into houses. Only One Nation is putting Australia first and has the policies to bring inflation under control.

It’s time for the government to stop looking after their mates and start putting the country first.

Transcript

If you feel like you’re going backwards, you are. Inflation is running out of control and way too high. Wages haven’t caught up to cost-of-living increases. When adjusted for inflation, Australia’s real wages have collapsed to a level not seen since before 2010. That means that government caused inflation has wiped out 15 years of hard-earned pay rises. The government has its foot on the accelerator now, making it worse, while the Reserve Bank is stomping on the brake for mortgage holders. This coalition motion claims $315 billion of Labor government spending is unhelpful in the inflation fight. The coalition’s $508 billion spend on its mismanaged COVID response was just as unhelpful. That created the inflation that Labor is now prolonging. The Liberal-Labor uniparty cannot fix the cost-of-living crisis when both are committed to net zero insanity, making inflation worse. While government subsidises foreign-owned, Chinese-dominated companies to put up environment-destroying wind and solar complexes, inflation will continue. While farmers are restricted from using their land to grow fresh food, inflation will continue. While government crushes small business and lets multinational companies get away with economic murder, inflation will continue. While 40 per cent of the cost of building a new house continues to be taxed, inflation will continue. 

The solutions are simple: cut the subsidies to the foreign-owned, net zero parasites, and use Australia’s abundant oil, coal and gas reserves right here for the benefit of the people in this country. Let farmers be free to use their land to cheaply grow the world’s best food so Australians can afford to eat. Finally, adopt One Nation’s housing policies that will get Australians into affordable houses. Only One Nation policies will put Australia first and bring inflation under control. To the Labor-Liberal uniparty, stop looking after your mates and start putting the country first. Adopt One Nation’s policies on housing and immigration. 

The argument about nuclear is overshadowing an inconvenient truth.

Coal remains the cheapest form of baseload reliable power and nuclear is a better alternative compared to wind and solar.

I support nuclear power and believe it should be part of our energy mix, but there’s no need to eliminate coal to make it happen.

Transcript

Labor, the Greens, the paid-off media and climate activists are all fighting tooth and nail against nuclear. You can hear them screaming so loudly because reliable baseload power is a massive threat to the billionaire solar and wind cartel. Both sides of politics have, for more than two decades, mismanaged energy so grossly that we’ve caused an energy crisis that Australia is now facing down. One Nation congratulates the coalition on agreeing with One Nation’s longstanding policy to remove the ban on nuclear energy and have a debate about where it sits in our energy needs. We can only hope that One Nation’s full policy is adopted one day: remove all the subsidies and let the cheapest form of power win so we can put more money back in Australians’ pockets. 

There’s no reason that we need to forcibly shut down coal to put nuclear in the mix. The coalition plan is to forcibly acquire coal-fired power stations, shut them down and replace them with nuclear. Let’s do nuclear, and let’s do coal too. One of those coal-fired power stations the coalition wants to shut down is at Tarong. I visited there on Friday. It sits right on top of a coal mine. Coal is dug out of the ground and put on a conveyor belt straight into the power station with minimal transport costs. What more could you ask for? We’ve got 40 years of real-world costs on the Tarong stations, and it’s as cheap as chips. It uses high-energy-density fuel. Why tear down Tarong and replace it with nuclear based on projections—or worse, solar and wind based on unicorn farts? Instead, just build another coal-fired power station right there at Tarong beside it and use the same power. 

The coalition can’t do that, because it’s fully committed to the United Nations net zero madness, a catastrophic nightmare in the making, and we haven’t seen anything yet. We’ve got these people in the government putting on benefits to energy policy because of the rising cost due to their policy. Only One Nation will say, ‘up yours!’ to foreign unelected organisations telling us what to do and instead use Australia’s coal and uranium resources for the cheapest power possible. 

Real wages have gone backwards, erasing a decade of pay rises since this government took office. This data is up to March, so it doesn’t reflect the current inflation rise.  So, if Australians feel they’re working harder and getting less, it’s because they are. 

Net zero policies are driving up electricity prices, which in turn affect the entire economy. Every sector—whether farming, manufacturing, or retail—uses power, and rising energy costs inevitably get passed on. In the March quarter, business bankruptcies reached record levels, with the construction sector hit particularly hard. Housing construction is declining, yet the government continues to bring in more immigrants. 

This government has clearly failed in its economic management—there is no trust left.

Transcript

The Reserve Bank has just announced the inflation rate for May as four per cent, which is above the expected rate of 3.8 per cent. What’s even worse is that the underlying inflation rate, which had been trending downward, has now increased to 4.4 per cent. Inflation is surging, and it’s entirely the fault of the Albanese Labor government. Today we heard Finance Minister Gallagher again bragging about this government’s track record on protecting wages. The data does not support that statement. 

According to the Australia Institute, real wages of everyday Australians have fallen from $52,900 to $52,080 since this government came to power. That figure has been calculated to March this year, so it doesn’t take into account what is now rising inflation. If everyday Australians feel like they’re working harder and going backwards, it’s because you are. The inflation spike was entirely predictable. Net zero measures continue to force up electricity prices, which cascade throughout our entire economy. Every business, from farming to manufacturing to retailing, uses power. Any increase in power has to be passed on, and this is what we’re now seeing. 

One Nation calls on the government to abandon the insane net zero transition before the economy falls apart entirely, catastrophically. In the March quarter, business bankruptcies were at record levels. Bankruptcies in the building sector were especially high. Housing construction is not rising; it’s falling. Yet this government continues to bring in more new-arrival immigrants, which is inherently inflationary. The economy as a whole is just barely staying out of recession, with GDP growth at 0.2 per cent, a figure that shows the destruction that net zero is causing to our entire economy. I hope the Reserve Bank holds its nerve and doesn’t raise interest rates. If it raises rates, everyday Australians will be doing it even tougher. What a mess. This government is not fit to govern—no trust. 

40 wind turbines every month. 22,000 solar panels every single day. 28,000 km of transmission lines and 48 gigawatt of batteries. That’s what the Net-Zero pipe dream requires.

These goals will never be achieved, yet the government persists in pursuing them, causing huge damage to our environment along the way. No one will take responsibility for cleaning up these environmental vandals, so Australia is on track for an environmental wasteland, more expensive electricity and blackouts.

Ditch Net-Zero – let’s bring down power bills AND protect the environment.

Transcript

I move: 

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy (Senator Wong) to questions without notice I asked today relating to renewable energy.  

In question time I asked the government how their insane net-zero wind and solar pipedreams were progressing. Here is what Labor’s energy minister Chris Bowen’s plan requires for the next eight years: 40 large wind turbines every single month, each with 100-metre concrete foundations, a massive turbine and huge blades atop a 300-metre tall steel tube; three days to erect the crane on each site; days to install each turbine; two days to dismantle the crane and move it to the next place; 22,000 solar panels every single day for eight years; 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines carving up national parks, prime farmland and the environment; plus 48 gigawatt hours of batteries. Predictably, the construction of wind and solar is nowhere near these targets. The government’s targets are physically and financially impossible.  

While the targets will never be achieved, this government will do huge damage trying. Farmers and landholders are being conned into having these environment-killing wind-and-solar installations on their land. With the promise of some short-term money, farmers let these predators onto their land. Little do these landowners know, they are now responsible for disposing of the toxic wind turbines and solar panels at the end of their short life when the company that instals them inevitably goes broke or abandons them. 

Every coalmine, however, is legislated to pay a rehabilitation bond for each hectare of land disturbed. The mining company pays upfront. The money is held until the mine ends and restores the environment to its original state. The bond is then returned. Wind and solar companies don’t pay any rehabilitation bond. Thousands of landholders will be stuck with useless wind turbines and solar panels on their property that they will have to pay to remove. Prevention is better than cure. Anyone can see this scandal coming, yet the government won’t take action to prevent it. It just sits there causing this catastrophe. The government protects its billionaire wind-and-solar mates living like parasites off subsidies Australian electricity users and taxpayers will continue to pay. Government screws it up; taxpayers pay.  

As the cost of living increases out of control, the number of businesses going broke (insolvency) is on the rise. Each of these insolvencies is a tragic story of people losing their jobs and facing uncertainty about whether they will have money to put food on the table.

Ditch the net-zero policies that are driving up energy costs, cut red tape and make it easier for family businesses to survive.  That’s One Nation’s plan!

Transcript

I support Senator Hughes’s motion and agree that the Albanese Labor government has failed to grow the economy and, with that lack of growth, failed to restore Australia’s standard of living. A stable economic environment is necessary for a new business to open and to flourish and for existing businesses to weather the many storms this government has engineered. Labor’s interest rate rises are due directly to Labor’s wasteful spending and energy price inflation resulting from pointless net zero policies. The Prime Minister and Energy Minister Bowen have failed to provide electricity at prices people and businesses can afford, directly driving inflation. Every new piece of legislation in this place seems designed to strangle the last breath out of businesses. Live sheep exports are today’s casualty. 

It should come as no surprise that data from ASIC shows there were 1,245 business insolvencies in May 2024. This is a 44 per cent increase on last year and a 122 per cent increase across the life of the Albanese Labor government. To put it simply this government is sending business broke. One thousand two hundred and forty-five insolvent businesses in just one month is not a statistic; it’s a human tragedy. These are everyday Australians who had a go at lifting themselves up, who were employing others in their community and who were paying tax to support the government agenda. Now their businesses are gone along with their ability to provide for their families, free from reliance on the government. Business confidence is down because this government has talked it down with an unending recipe of doom and gloom about global boiling and sustainability requiring reductions in living standards. There’s no hope in this message, just unending misery. It’s a lie. No wonder businesses give up. 

One Nation believes abundance is not a dirty word. It’s natural for people to seek abundance and to share abundance. With One Nation, Australians can and will restore prosperity to this beautiful country of ours. 

If you had any faith in the Liberal/Nationals, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Despite giving some people false hope, Dutton and his coalition have confirmed they are fully committed to economy-destroying net-zero that will send jobs to China.

Liberal and Labor are the uni-party. There’s no real difference between them.

Only One Nation will make decisions for Australians first.

The Labor Albanese Government is destroying proven, low-cost coal power plants under the guise of “retiring them” and replacing this stable, secure, safe and affordable power with land-grabbing solar and wind installations which are proven now to be unreliable, environmentally-damaging and expensive.

If Labor’s ideology means that it won’t consider new generation coal, which China and other countries are busy putting in place, then why doesn’t it consider the nuclear option? Is it so blinkered that it refuses to see the data from around the world which demonstrates nuclear as a proven reliable, stable, secure, safe, environmentally-responsible and affordable source of power?

Why is Labor being dishonest about this? Are the solar schemes and subsidies so important to their mates that they would sell out the regular working Australian families for their mates at the WEF? What happened to the party of the workers?

Transcript

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister. The government has ruled out adding nuclear electricity to our energy mix based on the government’s calculations showing a higher cost of nuclear energy as against wind and solar. Minister, can you please inform the Senate of the levelised cost of generation of wind, solar and nuclear that informed the government’s position? 

The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Roberts. I will just remind you that questions need to go to ministers, not assistant ministers, so I’m directing the question to Minister Gallagher. 

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council): Thank you for the question. The advice the government has—and I think this is understood by everyone who’s been following the energy discussion—is that nuclear energy is very slow to build. It’s the most expensive form of new electricity generation. It cannot beat renewables, which are the cheapest, fastest and cleanest form of new electricity generation. The analysis that was done showed that there was a significant cost burden. Our position is about cost. We are looking for the cheapest form of energy generation, which is renewables, which includes wind and solar. Australia obviously has a very significant comparative advantage when it comes to that form of energy, with more sunlight hitting our landmass than any other country. We also don’t have a workforce to support that nuclear energy generation. So the time involved means it would be decades before anything became operational and it would do nothing to reduce the energy costs for Australian households and businesses in the meantime. 

So our position—and I think there is a lot of support for that position—is that this transition to renewable energy is the quickest and cheapest path as we shift away from fossil fuel generation. That is the path that the government was clear about before the election. That is the path that we are implementing under Minister Bowen’s and Minister McAllister’s leadership, leading for the government, and we will continue on that path. We will leave the nuclear energy debate for those opposite to convince people of. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a first supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, is the figure for nuclear based on real-world data from the 440 nuclear power stations around the world or even from the last 10 stations completed in the last few years? If not, on what is it based? 

Senator GALLAGHER: As I understand it—and I will see if there’s anything I can provide—the government analysis that looked at the cost of nuclear energy was looking at how to replace the retiring coal-fired power station fleet. That figure resulted in about a $25,000 cost impost on each Australia taxpayer, based off 15.1 million taxpayers. So, according to many of the experts in the energy field, it’s more expensive, going to take decades to build and, in the meantime, will do nothing to reduce the power costs of households, which are clearly going to benefit from the shift to renewable energy generation and technology. That is the path the government will continue on because we are focused on cost of living and a sensible and orderly transition away from fossil fuels to new forms of energy. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: The government is using a figure for the cost of modular nuclear power that’s not based on any real-world data. Rather, it is mere speculation about a type of generation that doesn’t exist. 

Government senators interjecting— 

The PRESIDENT: Order on my right! 

Senator McKim interjecting— 

The PRESIDENT: Order, Senator McKim! Senator Roberts has the right to ask his question in silence, and I will ask senators to respect that right. 

Senator ROBERTS: The government’s data is based on speculation about a type of generation that does not exist and completely misrepresents the cost of nuclear power. The government is spreading misinformation again. Minister, why didn’t the government use the real-world data from 57 conventional nuclear power stations currently under construction around the world, and why is the government not being honest about nuclear? (Time expired) 

Senator GALLAGHER: I don’t accept the question that Senator Roberts has put to me. We are providing information to the community, and that information is that renewables remain the lowest-cost new-build generation technology. That is clearly a fact. 

We have also done some analysis, and I think you will find it hard to find any expert that says nuclear isn’t expensive or isn’t going to take too long to build, including how you generate a workforce around this and the time it will take to do that based on the work that we need to happen now. We can’t delay this for decades. The transition was already delayed for a decade under those opposite, with 22 failed energy policies. In 18 months we have been getting on with it. We are in that transition. We will focus on renewables as the lowest-cost form of energy generation that will help households with those cost-of-living pressures. (Time expired) 

Award-winning journalist & author, Peter Hitchens, exposes the Net Zero absurdity straight to the face of George Monbiot on BBC Question Time.

“…we didn’t just close down our coal fired power stations, we blew them up, we were so certain we were right to do so. At the same time, China even as we speak is building the equivalent of two new coal fired power stations a week. India has a vast expansion programme of coal fired power stations…”

“If you want to live in a country with Net Zero, if you where nobody can afford to heat their house where people have incredibly expensive and non functioning heat pumps inflicted on them, if you want lots of people to lose their jobs because there’s no energy, if you want to be cold all the time… then carry on believing that the demand to go for Net Zero… is intelligent and thoughtful.”

This Labor Government is promising cost of living relief and tax cuts while it’s actually increasing taxes. Already, this government wants to tax farmers off the land to make way for “FrankenFoods” — fake lab meat and bug protein. Recently Labor announced plans to tax clothing in the name of saving the environment. Labor now wants to tax cars based on weight and engine efficiency. Cars needed by tradies will go up by $4000, family people movers by $6000 and 4WD cruisers that are owned by every second farmer, will go up $13,000.

Taxing tradies will further force up the costs of building and maintaining the family home. Meanwhile, plans are underway to build and populate dystopian Smart Cities — Sydney’s first has been announced already. These make no provision for cars, so you can expect the Labor car tax to increase until car ownership is only afforded by the very rich.

I’ve been warning about the predatory billionaires and the World Economic Forum agenda, summed up by their slogan “you’ll own nothing and be happy”. It’s started and it’s being implemented by the Albanese Labor Government.

One Nation opposes all those promoting the Orwellian future that this government is fast tracking with its ‘taxing and spending’ and the legislation Labor is ramming through parliament.

The choice for voters is clear. One Nation or tyranny.

Transcript

This Labor government is maintaining the tradition of Labor governments: taxing and spending, taxing and spending. In the last few weeks, the government has revealed plans to tax clothing in the name of saving the environment and to tax food in the name of funding Australia’s world-leading biosecurity. I would have thought protecting Australia’s biosecurity, which underpins $100 billion in export earnings, was the responsibility of the whole country, considering the wealth it bestows on all Australians. I would consider funding biosecurity to be important to protecting the supply of food we all eat, but, no, this government wants to tax farmers off the land to make way for its billionaire mates’ Frankenstein foods. It doesn’t matter that Australians don’t want to eat bugs or fake meat cultured and then grown in bioreactors. This attack on Australia’s health and nutrition is happening because this government’s owners demand for themselves the wealth currently in the hands of our farming communities. They want to transfer the land and the wealth from our farmers to their billionaire parasitic friends. 

When the billionaires that try to run the world say, ‘You’ll own nothing and be happy,’ amongst the things the public will no longer own is a car. Chris Bowen MP and his ministry of misery have announced fuel emission standards are being applied to new cars from 2030. ‘Increased fuel emission standards’, ‘tougher fuel emission standards’—it sounds innocuous until you read the fine print, and I thank the opposition for crunching the numbers. Utes will go up between $2,000 and $6,000 each. At a time when the government need as many tradies as they can find to build as many homes as they can, the government think it’s a smart move to add a new tax on tradies, raising the cost of houses and decreasing the supply of houses. What a bloody stupid idea! 

More troubling is the increasing cost of passenger cars to Australian families. The Outlander from Mitsubishi—that’s a family SUV—will go up $4,000. LandCruisers, owned by every second family in the bush, will go up $13,000 each. That’s yet another attack on the bush from a government happy to harm the bush in order to win votes back from the teals in the city. This will not be the only price increase in cars. The materials needed for our suicidal net zero measures have much in common with materials used in making cars. The increase in demand from net zero means that these materials are getting scarcer and scarcer and much more expensive. A family car is likely to rise in price by $10,000 within five years in today’s dollars because of this materials inflation. Then add Minister Bowen’s car tax, and you can see where this is all going. 

For those who still haven’t worked it out, the New South Wales government has just announced Australia’s first 30-minute city, surrounding the new Badgerys Creek airport. It’s called Bradfield City. It will be ‘cybersmart and digitally led’. That means digital surveillance on everyone. It’s happening in London already, and in other countries, with commercial and community facilities including retail, cultural facilities and work all in the one suburb. So, you don’t have choice of where you work; you work nearby. Plans for Bradfield City include car-free streets. No matter the weather, you will walk everywhere. 

On the way to net zero the cost of driving will be artificially increased to raise costs, thanks to this government. That would dramatically increase the cost of living for everyone in this country, increase food prices for everyone in this country and ultimately lead to, in 2030, the very act of driving being an act of civil disobedience. It’s all about wealth transfer to their parasitic billionaire friends and about control.