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Defending Agriculture Against Net Zero’s Harmful Agenda

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The UK recently completed a trial of a carbon credit system that sets a daily allowance for each person—in effect, a limit on your ability to purchase food, clothing, goods, and travel as you have always done. The limit has been set at 20kg of carbon emissions per day, with food restricted to 2600g. Food manufacturers are cooperating by adding a carbon statement on their packaging to inform consumers how much of their allowance each product consumes. For example, a packet of cheese accounts for 1100g—almost half of your daily carbon allowance. Different foods have varying carbon rates. Root vegetables like potatoes and carrots are relatively low, while red meat incurs the highest charge – so high, in fact, that if you were to spend your entire daily food carbon allowance on red meat, it would buy you 30g of steak—just one mouthful.

You may recall I mentioned this in a speech some time ago and was fact-checked. Well, fact-check this! Net zero is supported by the Liberal Party, the Labor Party, and the Nationals. Only One Nation stands firm in defending our agricultural sector from this insane push to control the food supply and hollow out the bush.

Transcript

The UK has just concluded a trial of a personal carbon dioxide allowance which, as the name implies, calculates how much carbon dioxide is produced annually in the UK, then divides that per person per day and then works out by how much that figure needs to fall in order to meet net zero goals. We have the white paper in my office that informed the trial. The whole concept of a daily carbon dioxide allowance is now out there for all to see—conspiracy theory no more; I bloody told you so!

To anyone who is advised by data and empirical evidence, not mass formation psychosis, carbon dioxide is the gas of life, necessary for all life on earth. It’s plant food. The more CO2 produced, the more food, plants and trees the earth is blessed with. The climate change scam is not founded on science; it’s founded on feelings. It has become a religion for those who consider themselves above religion, and increasingly amongst those who could do with having some religion in their lives.

Australia’s agricultural sector and rural communities, and $100 billion of agricultural production and hundreds of thousands of jobs, are about to be sacrificed on the altar of climate fraud. It is driven by globalist politicians and directed by parasitic billionaires who will benefit from this criminal enterprise—including Coca-Cola, who sponsored the trial. Coca-Cola is the world’s largest producer of plastic, with 120 billion single-use plastic bottles each year holding their toxic sludge and producing 15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide—so their support for this white paper and trial is nothing short of greenwashing. Coca-Cola’s leading shareholders are Warren Buffett, of Berkshire Hathaway, as well as BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street. These wealth funds invest on behalf of the world’s predatory billionaires who will profit from a carbon dioxide allowance. This is in the open following the admission last week by British Prime Minister Starmer that farmland being stolen from British farmers via taxation extortion will be purchased by corporate partners, including BlackRock. I wonder if this is what Prime Minister Albanese spoke about in his recent meeting with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

What is the future for Australian food producers under this crony capitalist dystopian agenda headed our way? Red meat is top of the hit list. The methane cycle means cows do not produce methane in a way that remains in the atmosphere; I’ll return to that point in a minute. Nonetheless, this trial used the figure for red meat carbon dioxide production of 100 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent, which equals 100 grams of carbon dioxide for every one gram of meat. Quick maths means your daily food allowance of 2,600 grams of carbon dioxide will be enough to buy 26 grams of red meat—one mouthful—and then you eat nothing else that day.

I raised this years ago in this chamber when the World Economic Forum first called for a limit on red meat of 30 grams a day—another conspiracy theory that’s come true! A cooked breakfast will have to be half the size to squeeze into your daily allowance—again, with nothing left over for food for the rest of the day. Your daily allowance will cover two plant based meals a day because predatory billionaires like BlackRock and Bill Gates are buying up farmland to grow the cereals and soy needed for plant based meals. Not surprisingly, the whole thing is rigged towards the products they can exploit for their own financial gain—including plant based fake meat, which contains 20 chemical ingredients; most are shared with pet food. The nutrition profile is not even close to the nutrition profile of natural foods like red meat and dairy. Speaking of dairy: don’t wash your yummy plant burger down with a glass of milk, because you can’t. One glass of milk is your entire food budget for the day, with just enough left over for the coffee to go in it.

The hypocrisy here was on display to everyone at last week’s COP 29 meeting for the UN, in Baku, where the area dedicated to meat based foods was packed and the one dedicated to plant based foods was empty. The World Economic Forum at Davos has hosted speakers calling for this system to include carbon dioxide credit trading so rich people can live their lives exactly as they do right now and poor people can skimp on food, clothing, travel, electricity and entertainment and sell their excess credits to rich people. The rules never apply to the people who make them. The war on livestock is a war on good nutrition and is based on a lie which is designed to enrich billionaires. Over 150 nations signed the Global Methane Pledge without even bothering to check if the methane was man made. Methane from fossil fuels has a higher carbon-13 isotope ratio, and, even though hydrocarbon fuel use is rising, the carbon-13 levels of atmospheric methane are falling. Between 2020 and 2022, microbes in the environment drove methane emissions more than hydrocarbon fuels did. That’s a pretty big deal.

Methane has supposedly caused 30 per cent of our current temperature rise—say the broken climate models. Yet 90 per cent of that recent rise was nature’s microbes, not cattle. The Big Brother in every aspect of our lives is based on fake science of carbon dioxide and methane.

Personal Carbon Allowances White Paper – REPORTDownload
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Public Service Not Impartial on Net-Zero Policies

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The Australian Public Service Commissioner (APSC) is tasked with ensuring our bureaucrats are kept in line and are living up to the standards expected by the Australian public.  One of those standards is impartiality.

I raised the issue that government organisations appear to be offering support or endorsement of net-zero policies, rather than simply providing comments on what would be required to implement them.

The APSC doesn’t appear to view this as a problem, based on their responses.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing tonight. I’ve only got two short questions. There seems to still be an abundance of public servants, agencies and departments making submissions outlining explicit support for net zero policies. We visited this before, but I’m still unclear about how that meets the Public Service standard of impartiality. Shouldn’t those submissions not endorse government policy and only talk about the mechanics of implementing it?

Dr de Brouwer: I think it’s also the obligation of public servants to implement government policy, and I’d be reading from what you’re saying around that characterisation that the public servants are implementing government policy, and they’re talking about how to go about that implementation.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s my point there. They’re endorsing policies. I can accept that they can discuss the mechanics of implementation, as I said, but not the endorsement of policy.

Dr de Brouwer: I would have to see the material to make any comment on that. Essentially, it is their responsibility to explain that.

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll go to the second question. I’m interested in when a submission might specifically say, for example, ‘This department supports the implementation of net zero.’ Net zero is a government policy, so I’m still struggling to understand how supporting or opposing a particular government policy meets the standards of impartiality.

Dr de Brouwer: I think you really need to ask that to them, Senator. With my familiarity with cabinet documents, I’ll say that it may be that they’re talking about a particular implementation pathway, and they can see that implementation path as being feasible and practical, and they’re saying, ‘Yes, we can do that.’ The term that officials may use in that is to say, ‘I support that,’ because they can do that, rather than they necessarily agree—

Senator ROBERTS: I can see some merit in what you’re saying, but, as I said, I’m interested in when a submission might specifically say, ‘This department supports the implementation of net zero.’ They’re basically saying the whole department supports net zero.

Dr Bacon: It’s hard to tell in the abstract without seeing the context of what you’re quoting from, but I do wonder if they meant ‘support’ in the sense of deploying resources, expertise, personnel to implement the government of the day’s policy. When we talk about implementation, as Dr de Brouwer said, sometimes we, in a public service setting, use the word ‘support’ to talk about the deployment of personnel, expertise and resources.

Senator ROBERTS: Okay, but do you still agree that public servants should not express their opinion about a policy, just the implementation of it?

Dr Bacon: The job of public servants is to implement the policies of the government of the day, and also we have a role in explaining the policies of the government of the day as well. The Australian Public Service Commission has guidance that we issue that steps out how those judgements ought to be made about when it is appropriate for public servants to comment, how public servants might comment and how the code of conduct and the values that are set out in the Public Service Act apply in different circumstances. It is something that is difficult to comment on in the abstract, because it’s a judgement on a case-by-case basis—that’s what our guidance says—taking into account a range of factors that we recommend people apply. That draws on High Court case law, for example.

Senator ROBERTS: I don’t intend to take it to High Court.

Dr Bacon: Sure. These principles have been considered, and we’ve incorporated that into our guidance.

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Minister Makes ABYSMAL Defence of Net-Zero

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When government discounts expire, Australia will be facing their highest electricity bills ever.

This is despite CSIRO claims that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity.

With the largest amount of wind and solar on the grid, electricity prices have never been higher – go figure. Australia is incredibly rich in resources and should be an electricity super power. 

Instead, we have Minister Ayres and the once respected Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) who continue to destroy our country.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My questions are fairly short. CSIRO didn’t give a direct answer to my question on notice about the cost of Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro, but I have the latest figure the CSIRO is using for the Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro in Queensland: $12 billion. We now know the Queensland government internally have the actual cost at $36 billion—triple. Snowy 2.0 has blown out from $2 billion to $20 billion, and I forecast that in 2017. That’s if you include the connecting infrastructure—everything to turn the power on. Why do you continue to tell Australians this is a cheap pathway to follow when every step we take proves you wrong—repeatedly wrong. Why?

Dr Mayfield: These numbers are embedded in our GenCost report and, with every technology, we’re looking for actual projects to base our numbers on. I don’t believe we’ve been using the numbers for the Queensland project as part of that. Mr Graham can probably clarify that for me, but we update that on each cycle based on what’s actually happening out there. So the numbers are as up to date as they possibly can be, as we get more project information.

Senator ROBERTS: That worries me more—that they’re up to date. Your GenCost is nothing more than a fairytale. Considering the assumptions, when we include, then, all of the additional costs, like pumped hydro, that are needed to make it work in Australia, we’re not going to have a cheaper energy system, are we, under GenCost?

Dr Hilton: Chair, could I just object to the use of ‘fairytale’? I think that’s a pretty derogatory way of describing what is a well-considered report that has opened itself up to input from a large range of experts over an eight-year period and, I think, provides excellent guidance to the community about the levelised cost of energy.

CHAIR: I think you’ve put that—

Senator ROBERTS: As I said, when we go into the assumptions, it’s a fairytale.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts!

Senator Ayres: Can I just make a couple of comments about this? I think it’s—

Senator ROBERTS: The assumptions have been proven wrong repeatedly.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts!

Senator Ayres: It’s the kind of badgering of our key national scientific organisation that you should not do—you should not do. It’s an organisation that has served Australia well for decade after decade after decade. It is composed of scientists and staff who work diligently on these questions. It is, of course, open to people—particularly people who have got some peer-reviewed scientific background, but it’s open to people—to ask questions and to criticise the findings of the CSIRO and any other research institution. I don’t mind the scrutiny. I don’t think it does your cause any good when you ask these questions, but I don’t mind it. What I do mind is the use of derogatory language. The problem is it’s not just a One Nation Senator who does it. We sort of expect that. It’s the Leader of the Opposition who said on GenCost: It’s a discredited report—let’s be clear about it. It’s not relied on. It’s not a genuine piece of work.

Senator ROBERTS: Correct.

Senator Ayres: What is wrong with the Liberal and National Party that you allow a bloke to run the show who pours scorn—

Senator ROBERTS: Chair, this is taking up my time. It needs to stop.

CHAIR: Alright.

Senator Ayres: who pours scorn on science and engineering. It has it has got—

Senator ROBERTS: You’re just taking up my time to shut me down.

Senator Ayres: But you’re the one who applied the derogatory comments. It’s got to stop.

CHAIR: Minister!

Senator ROBERTS: It’s my opinion.

Senator Ayres: It’s got to stop.

Senator ROBERTS: It’s my opinion.

Senator Ayres: It’s got to stop. It’s disrespectful.

CHAIR: Minister. Senator Roberts, can I just have a conversation with you?

Senator ROBERTS: Sure.

CHAIR: You still have the call. You’ve asked a question in a certain way. Dr Hilton has put some comments on the record about that. The minister has put some comments on the record about that. My job is just to make sure that you ask your questions in a courteous way. And you can ask questions about GenCost. I’d just ask that you put them in a courteous way.

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s get a move on to the next question. Can you guarantee—guarantee—the entire electricity system, from generation to poles and wires to the electricity bill to the cost of taxpayers, is going to be cheaper if we continue down your pathway? The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act was passed in the year 2000 under the Howard LNP government. So for more than 20 years, government has forced an increasing amount of wind and solar onto the electricity grid. I have here a graph of the cost of electricity over the past 20 years. It has tripled, largely under your guidance. Can any one of you experts here please tell me in which year on this graph putting more wind and solar onto the grid has brought down the price of electricity? I’m happy to table this.

CHAIR: Thank you, Senator Roberts.

Dr Hilton: Senator, we don’t have a pathway; we provide data to our elected representatives for them to make policy decisions about our electricity system. We’ll continue to do that through the GenCost report in a manner that is objective and that is open to feedback with each iteration of the report, as it’s been over the last eight years, and it’s up to our elected representatives to make the policy decisions about pathways, as they’ve done over the last 30 years, as you showed in your graph.

Senator ROBERTS: So you can’t guarantee a pathway.

Senator Ayres: It’s not up to Dr Hilton or the CSIRO—

Senator ROBERTS: The CSIRO has advised there are three pathways, Senator.

Senator Ayres: They don’t run the energy strategy of the Commonwealth or the states. They provide expert advice on what the cheapest technologies are in the Australian context. That’s what they do. They are scientists. They provide advice. It’s a matter for government to follow it. It’s not their pathway. The government—and the private sector too—takes advice about what the cheapest forms of technology are, and if you persist in supporting the most expensive ones, that’s a matter for you.

CHAIR: Okay. Thank you, Minister.

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s take the word of the RBA governor this morning. She said the key factor is supply and demand. When you add electrification to this, what the hell are we going to do with prices? Are you aware that higher electricity prices cascade and multiply throughout the economy, devastating manufacturing, devastating agriculture, devastating household bills when you remove the subsidies. Are you aware that in every nation in the world, increasing solar and wind increases electricity prices? The real-world data shows that. Within you, does this fact about increasing solar and wind driving increasing electricity prices in every nation across the globe raise any questions and, if so, what questions?

Senator Ayres: Senator Roberts, it’s—

Senator ROBERTS: I’m asking.

Senator Ayres: I’m answering. If you’d approached this issue in a straightforward way, you would’ve explained that the graph that you waved around is the electricity CPI. Right? It’s not the real cost over time; it’s got inflation built into it. If you were straightforward about it, you would pose the counterfactual: what happens if you put more expensive than the—

Senator ROBERTS: I just told you what happens, around the world. Every nation that increases solar and wind increases electricity prices.

Senator Ayres: What the government has to do, serious government that’s actually interested in the future of manufacturing—we will need more electricity.

Senator ROBERTS: The most important factor in the manufacturing cost is electricity, and you’re driving the price up.

Senator Ayres: We’re going to build more manufacturing, and we’re going to drive the price down by delivering more supply and a modern generation facility.

Senator ROBERTS: When you add the demand of—

Senator Ayres: You can hold up your silly graph as long as you like, but it doesn’t alter those facts.

CHAIR: Okay. I’m about to—

Senator ROBERTS: One more question.

CHAIR: Hello, everyone! I’m about to share the call, but I take Senator Roberts’s point that we’ve also had some long answers.

Senator ROBERTS: I’m on my last question.

CHAIR: Ask your final question.

Senator ROBERTS: The federal government says it relies on the CSIRO for advice on energy and future climate. Do you take responsibility for destroying Australia’s position as the cheapest supplier of electricity in the world, with it now being among the most expensive and hurting people and industries, while Mr Mayfield, during a cost-of-living crisis, two years ago was on a total remuneration package of more than $613,000. I’m thinking of people with a median income of $51,000, and half the Australian population is earning below $51,000.

Dr Hilton: I’m always impressed with the quality and influence of the work that our scientists do, but the capacity to directly alter the cost of living for Australians is not one of those gifts our researchers have.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

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Bouldercombe Residents Rebel Against Corporate Big Battery Project

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All across Queensland, wind, solar and battery projects are being given free reign to clear the environment with minimal checks or consultation.

Bouldercombe residents are right to be concerned. A battery that was only one-tenth the size of the planned project caught fire there, and authorities were unable to put it out. The fire was just left to burn.

Only One Nation will reduce power bills and protect the environment by putting an end to the net-zero madness.

 

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Coalition Complain Labor’s Renewable Target is Behind Schedule

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The coalition is complaining that Labor’s “renewables” target is falling behind, which is a good thing!

It’s time to tell foreign, unelected organisations backed by billionaire donors to stop dictating what we do in Australia and to bugger off. Australia’s wealth should be used to benefit Australians, plain and simple.

Transcript

For those watching at home, we’re debating a motion the Liberals-Nationals coalition introduced proposing a matter of public importance. The motion complains that, ‘Labor’s 82 per cent renewables by 2030 target is way behind schedule.’ I have two responses to that: ‘Who cares!’ and ‘Good!’ Renewables are the collection of wind, solar, hydrogen, battery, pumped hydro and other scams that parasitic billionaires own and pump up with billions more in taxpayer subsidies. Every new solar panel and every new wind turbine installed represents another increase in Australians’ power bills. 

I commend the Liberals and Nationals for further opening the debate on nuclear, which One Nation has always advocated. I cannot abide, though, the insistence that we do nuclear so that we can meet net zero targets. Net zero is economic suicide, human catastrophe and environmental disaster. The only thing that can truly bring Australian power bills down is coal and, in North Queensland, hydro. To comply with net zero, the coalition’s proposal is to forcibly acquire coal-fired power stations, shut them down and replace them with nuclear. We don’t need to end coal to do nuclear. We can do both. Why would we stop using coal here while we ship hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal to China and other countries every year. The United Nations World Economic Forum net zero target: that’s why. A foreign, unelected bureaucratic organisation is telling Australians what we can and can’t do. 

There’s only one solution: tell the foreign, unelected organisations and their billionaire donors, like Bill Gates, to bugger off. Australia is one of the most resource-rich countries in the world. We should be using every bit of these resources right here for the benefit of Australians and especially for getting back to being the source of the world’s cheapest electricity. Put Australians first. 

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The Impact Net Zero is Having on Everyday Australians

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Everyday Australians have gone backwards by 8.2% since the Albanese Government came to power. The largest reason for this is the net zero madness, which has driven up the price of electricity across the entire supply chain, from the farm gate to supermarkets. While subsidies on household electricity provide temporary relief while in place, businesses don’t get the same assistance and must pass their increased costs onto you.

The solution is simple: end the net zero madness!

Transcript

Under this Albanese Labor government, the buying power of wages in Australia is now eight per cent less than when Labor took office, the develop world’s worst result. Consequently, the Prime Minister’s approval rating has gone from positive 27 to negative six per cent in the latest Newspoll, and down 13 per cent as preferred Prime Minister. The conversation on social media and in person simply won’t move away from just how expensive it is now to live under Labor. 

Fixing this mess is simple: end the net zero madness and destruction of Australia’s productive capacity. Net zero is increasing costs right through the supply chain and forcing up supermarket prices. One Nation would restore competition to sectors like supermarkets, which are oligopolies with foreign wealth funds manipulating prices for their own benefit and then taking those profits overseas, permanently reducing Australian wealth. Residents in some Brisbane suburbs have been hit with obscene rises in insurance of up to 10 times their previous premium. Insurance rose after Brisbane City Council produced a flood map reflecting climate change hysteria—fraud rather than actual historical flood data. Suncorp recently sold their bank because their insurance business is more profitable. How is that even possible in the free market? The Roy Morgan Research consumer confidence index has been below 85 for a record 82 successive weeks. One hundred is neutral; 85 is bad. Only one in 12 Australians expect good times ahead. Aren’t governments are supposed to make things better, not worse? 

Into this environment of despair, the government has introduced its misinformation and disinformation bill. The government wants to talk about anything except housing and the cost of living under Labor. One Nation will remain focused on offering policies to encourage enterprise and hard work to encourage and support families. Its time all Australians can once again enjoy the riches our beautiful country has to offer. 

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Government’s Chief of Propoganda, Chris Bowen

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The government is the largest spreader of misinformation, and its Chief of Propaganda is Chris Bowen. There’s no limit to the lies he’ll tell to push the Net-Zero pipe-dream that’s making everyone’s bills higher.

Transcript

Chris Smith: Let’s get on to energy. Now, a report from the US Energy Department is saying that with nuclear electricity, prices will drop 37%. Chris Bowen says renewables will always be cheaper. This is basically a blatant lie, isn’t it, Malcolm?  

Senator ROBERTS: Well, you stole the word right out of my mouth. It is a lie. It is fraud. Fraud is the presentation of something as it is not for personal gain. Chris Bowen has been pushing this bandwagon, the lies fraudulently to get political capital. He is telling lie after lie. Solar and wind are the most expensive forms of energy, that’s repeated everywhere. You know, AEMO doesn’t even cost the lowest price system. What they did with, relying on GenCost in the first place was false assumptions underpinning their calculations for solar and wind to make them look favorable and negative assumptions under coal to make it look unaffordable. That is completely false. And now we’ve got a circular argument that’s beaten back to us all the time. AEMO doesn’t cost the lowest price systems. It’s forced to exclude the cost of calculating coal or nuclear. This is rubbish – the stuff that comes out of the south end of north bound bull.  

Chris Smith: Yeah, well, the CSIRO should be condemned completely for their reliance on that GenCost report. Malcolm.  

Senator ROBERTS: That is fraud as well Chris. That was a deliberate misrepresentation of the energy structure. It was politically driven to achieve a political objective, the same as their climate. The CSIRO has admitted to me that the politician’s quoting them as saying that there’s a danger in carbon dioxide from human activity, the CSIRO has denied ever saying that and they said they would never say it. They admitted to me that the temperatures today was not unusual, not unprecedented. So the whole thing is based on the stuff that comes out of the south end of north bound bull. The CSIRO is guilty of misrepresenting climate science, misrepresenting nature and misrepresenting climate, misrepresenting energy. It’s just a fraud to extract money, to make billionaires richer, and to make, foreign multinationals richer.  

Chris Smith: Spot on.  

Senator ROBERTS: And we pay for it.  

Chris Smith: Spot on. You’re not wrong.

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The Greens’ War on Coal

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The Greens’ war on coal is fuelled by misinformation. Modern coal is particulate free, and gas recovery technology on new coal fired power plants captures and converts steam stack gas into essential products like fertilizer, AdBlue, ethanol and even explosives, resulting in zero gasses being released into the atmosphere.

Coal mines are remediated to return the land to its original state.  Many Australian mines have already transformed into productive pastures.  In the long term, coal mines do not damage the country; rather, it’s industrial wind and solar that do. Blasting the tops off mountains to install industrial wind turbines is permanent environmental destruction.

Coal is essential for the health of our grid, for providing breadwinner jobs and to ensure prosperity of rural communities.

Transcript

The Greens misinformation on coal has gone on long enough. Fifty thousand Australians rely directly on the coal industry for their livelihood. Given the services to coalmines, add another 50,000 people that coal keeps afloat in mining communities—actually, it’s much, much more than an additional 50,000, with a reported multiplier across Australia of six times the number of jobs directly from mines. They’re communities that, if this unscientific rubbish from the Greens goes on much longer, the Greens will decimate. 

Modern coal plants are free from particulates and noxious gases. The only thing that leaves their steam stacks is water vapour and carbon dioxide: nature’s fertilisers. Australian and international firms now offer a process to capture those gases and convert them to productive things like fertiliser, AdBlue and ethanol—some things that the Greens will need so they can keep blasting the tops off mountains for wind turbines; that’s explosives. With this new capture and conversion technology, coal uses fewer resources and has a smaller environmental footprint than any nature-dependent power the Greens can advocate. 

Coal is not damaging to the environment. To those who post photos online of coalmines, alleging environmental vandalism and that the planet is boiling, please tell the whole story and please tell the truth. Coalmines are rehabilitated after use. A few moments ago I posted a link to the New Hope Group’s website, showing the remediation of their coalmines that I’ve personally inspected. It’s beautiful green countryside supporting thousands of cattle and in turn supporting rural communities. Mines remediate; that is fact. And damage from wind turbines and their access road construction is permanent; that is fact. 

Under current legislation, mining must pay into a bond fund to pay for remediation. No such provision exists for the net zero madness. Once this orgy of taxpayer and electricity-user subsidies is exhausted, these solar and wind companies will sell their installations into a shell company and scoot on back to whatever foreign tax haven in which they’re based. On humanitarian and environmental grounds, One Nation opposes this reckless, destructive Greens motion. Taxpayers will be left to clean up the mess. Communities will be destroyed, and it will cost electricity users and taxpayers tens of billions of dollars more to clean up after this insane green nightmare. 

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DEBUNKED: Brian Cox & Senator Malcolm Roberts on QandA

Join me as I break down the famous QandA session from 2016 with Brian Cox.

Have my arguments stood the test of time? Have the warnings of certain disaster by 2024 come true?

I go into depth to explain the full story behind this exchange that captured millions of views.

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Net-Zero Advocates Confronted with Reality

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For years, net-zero campaigners have refused to admit that wind and solar cannot keep the lights on during the evening and morning peaks. Climate realists using the phrase “when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow” have been mocked for years. 

That ridicule has now gone down the memory hole and net-zero advocates are now acknowledging the truth of that statement by introducing a policy called “firming.” This involves the process of storing electricity generated during the day for use during peak demand in the evening and morning—exactly what I’ve been saying for 15 years. 

The issue here is the cost: batteries and pumped hydro costs a fortune and batteries only last 10 to 15 years before needing replacement. There’s also an energy loss to consider—batteries lose about 10% of the energy put into them and another 10% on the way out, while pumped hydro uses more electricity to pump water uphill than it generates on the way down. 

I asked the Minister about the cost of “firming,” and her answer was quite embarrassing — she didn’t know. It’s likely to exceed $100 billion. 

Transcript | Question Time

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister. Minister, during evening and morning peak hours, electricity generation from industrial solar and wind averages just 10 per cent of rated capacity, because solar doesn’t work in the dark, and wind goes quiet at night. Big batteries can transfer electricity from daytime to the evening peak. Minister, how much battery capacity is your government planning to build to maintain electricity supply between sunset and sunrise?

Senator McAllister: I thank Senator Roberts for the question. The senator is right to point to the fact that Australia’s electricity system is changing. We have, as I think most senators understand, a fleet of ageing coal-fired power stations that require replacement. I can tell you: they are not getting any more reliable. In fact, over the last year, I don’t think there’s been a day when we haven’t had a circumstance where at least one of the coal-fired power generators in the national electricity market has been offline for one kind of maintenance or another. Of course, this arises because we went through nearly a decade when the coalition, while in government, did not land an energy policy. They had 22 policies; none of them landed. Our task as government—

The PRESIDENT: Minister McAllister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts?

Senator ROBERTS: I have a point of order. Standing order 70 (3) (c) says, ‘Answers shall be directly relevant to each question.’ I asked about how much battery capacity your government is planning to build to maintain electricity supply between sunset and sunrise.

The PRESIDENT: I will draw the minister to your question.

Senator McAllister: Of course, our task is actually to restore some measure of order to the energy system so that the investors who build the generation capacity that is necessary to power homes and businesses have the confidence to invest. And that is what the Capacity Investment Scheme has been designed to do. We have just been through a round of the Capacity Investment Scheme where we received very significant commitment to underwriting very significant battery capacity. We do understand the significance of this technology. What the experts tell us is the most cost-effective way to establish a national energy market that can meet the energy requirements of Australian homes and businesses is a combination of wind, of solar, of batteries and of gas, and that is the policy setting that we— (Time expired)

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, you couldn’t tell me the battery capacity your government is planning to build, so you may not be able to answer this question. But let’s just say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, please. What is the capital cost of that battery backup, and how much of that bill will taxpayers pay? Simple.

The PRESIDENT: I will just wait for silence, particularly on my left. This is Senator Roberts’s question.

Senator McAllister: As I have indicated previously to questions asked by Senator Roberts in this chamber, the cost of the transition is regularly estimated out to 2050 by AEMO, and it is included in the Integrated System Plan, which is regularly published and updated. Different states have different arrangements in terms of the ownership and investment in generation, and so the investment that will take place will look different depending on the ownership arrangements that are in place across the national electricity market. However, we understand that there is a measure of support required from the Commonwealth government, and it is why we have put in place the Capacity Investment Scheme which aims to provide support for those who are seeking to invest in new capacity, whether it is in batteries or other forms of generation in the national electricity market.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: So the minister cannot tell us the battery capacity required, nor the capital cost of that battery backup. So, Minister, AEMO is working off a figure of 60 gigawatt hours of storage at around $1 billion an hour, which is $60 billion. How much will electricity prices and supermarket prices rise as a result of having to spend that staggering amount of money?

Senator McAllister: Well, the one thing I can say is that we will take advice from the experts about the optimal investment that’s necessary to build out the national electricity market. It’s a different approach to the one taken by those opposite, because right now we have a coalition government whose plan is to invest taxpayers’ money in the most expensive form—

The PRESIDENT: Minister, please resume your seat.

Senator McKenzie: You can’t tell us how expensive yours will be!

The PRESIDENT: I’m waiting, Senator McKenzie! Senator Roberts.

Senator ROBERTS: A point of order on relevance. I didn’t ask about the coalition government, as you said. I asked about the Labor government now.

The PRESIDENT: I will draw the minister to your question, Senator Roberts. And while I have the attention of the chamber, I will ask senators, particularly those on my left, to listen in respectful silence. Minister McAllister.

Senator Thorpe: You lefties need to listen!

The PRESIDENT: Senator Thorpe, that includes you! Order! Minister, please continue.

Senator McAllister: Thanks very much, President. The senator asked about our plans. The Capacity Investment Scheme will deliver 32 gigawatts of renewable and clean dispatchable capacity to fill emerging
reliability gaps. The truth is that will put downward pressure on prices, because one of the consequences of the failed policies of those opposite is that we do have capacity capabilities that need to be filled because energy capacity is leaving the market and it has not been replaced. We are taking steps necessary to replace it. (Time expired)

Transcript | Take Note of Questions

I move: 

That the Senate take note of the answer from the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister, to a question without notice I asked today relating to energy. 

My question was quite simple: how much is the government’s net zero policy going to cost just for firming? Firming is the provision of what used to be called stable, synchronised baseload power to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. Firming wasn’t needed when we had coal power because coal plants provide stable, synchronised baseload power day and night. Solar and wind don’t. 

AEMO estimates Australia will need 65 gigawatt hours of firming to guarantee grid stability. Depending on the time of year, that storage will need to be refilled each day to get the grid through the next night, including most of the evening and morning peak hours. Australia’s energy consumption in 2023-24 shows that, in summer, for the morning peak hours we needed 36 gigawatt hours of power and for the evening peak hours 28 gigawatt hours. So AEMO’s figure of 65 gigawatt hours of firming is about right. The $64 billion expense—billion dollar expense—will be added to every Australian’s power bill, or it will go onto your taxes. Either way, under the Albanese government you will pay. 

The $64 billion cost is just for one night. These batteries need to be refilled the next day with power from the grid. That means that every day we need a huge amount of solar and wind just to charge the batteries. One wet day preventing large-scale generation from solar and wind means the batteries will not be recharged, resulting in blackouts and energy management that I’ll discuss tomorrow. It’s clear that 65 gigawatts of capacity at $64 billion is not enough to avoid blackouts. We’ll probably need twice that, as well as having to build extra solar and wind just to charge the batteries. 

Everyday Australians are up for hundreds of billions of dollars just for firming. That’s in addition to the electricity needed on any day. This is an insane impost on every Australian struggling with paying for their groceries and insurance and with the cost of living under Labor. End the net zero mandates now. 

Question agreed to. 

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