Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion, and I rise to support this Repeal Net Zero Bill 2025 put forward by my colleague the member for New England, Barnaby Joyce. He is absolutely right. Net zero, ultimately, will destroy our economic base here in Australia. The questions that I want to ask are: What will it cost? What will it cost in manufacturing jobs? What will it cost to the prosperity of ordinary Australians?

In Gladstone, in the Flynn electorate, we have got the CSG industry and the fourth-largest coal-exporting terminal in the world. Those two resource sectors are worth $160 billion to the Australian economy. By net zero, what we are doing is overseeing the demise of both of these industries. If we continue on this path and we do that, how do we fill that economic shortfall? Furthermore, the cost of energy to these industries is becoming more and more. The aluminium smelter and the refineries in Gladstone and Australia are asking for billions in government handouts just to stay competitive. What happens to the thousands of jobs that are connected to these industries if we continue down this road? We've already seen this sort of thing in Germany, for example, where there is now an economic crisis that is the worst thing that the German people have had since the Second World War, all based on this green dream of renewable energy and net zero.

In the Flynn electorate there are over 90 renewable energy projects that will be covering agricultural land and the ranges up and down the Great Dividing Range—thousands of turbines and millions of solar panels. This is dividing communities. It is all subsidised, and it makes absolutely no sense because this power generation, the renewable energy sector, is unreliable. We also have three coal-fired power stations in the electorate of Flynn—Callide, Gladstone and Stanwell, at Rockhampton. What becomes of that baseload power when it gets put in a position where it cannot compete in the marketplace to sell energy because of the mandates and the RET subsidies that the renewable energy sector gets? What we are doing is driving small business and individuals to the wall. We've got people living in cars and people living in tents because they cannot afford their electricity bills, and it's time this stopped. Let's dump this net zero. It is economic madness. It is overseeing the demise of business, industry and prosperity that Australians have.

It's time for the debate; it's a line in the sand. People need to understand the ramifications of what happens if we continue down this road of 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030 and 43 per cent carbon reduction by 2030. We've got things like the Safeguard Mechanism, which is an impost on those 215 big companies around Australia—30 per cent of which are in Central Queensland. On the other hand, now we've got them putting their hands out for government subsidies. It just makes absolutely no sense at all. Let's have this debate. Let's have it properly. Dump net zero.

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