Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Repeal Net Zero Bill 2025. My electorate of O'Connor is ground zero for net zero. We've already seen the total demise of the nickel industry, with 14 out of 16 nickel mines in my electorate closing thanks to cheap, dirty nickel being produced in Indonesia. Of the two remaining facilities, Murrin Murrin has lost $61 million in the last six months and has just declined a $35 million government grant to transform its gas-fired power to renewables. The iconic Kalgoorlie nickel smelter and Goldfields nickel mines are shuttered, and the Ravensthorpe First Quantum nickel mine and processing operation on the south coast has folded.

Thousands of jobs have been lost across my electorate, and, going forward, the safeguard mechanism will single-handedly destroy even more productive industries between now and 2030. Of the 219 largest emitters in the country captured under the safeguard mechanism, 36 per cent are in WA, with over 20 of those facilities in my electorate of O'Connor. They include the goldminers of the historic Goldfields; Boddington, the largest goldmine in the country; lithium producers at Mount Marion; the Worsley Alumina refinery; and Premier Coal, in Collie. The safeguard mechanism is forcing companies to buy expensive renewable energy, build their own renewable power stations or buy expensive offsets, which is literally converting productive O'Connor farmland back to bush.

Meanwhile, the capacity mechanism is incentivising renewable energy projects across the agricultural areas of my electorate. Under the capacity mechanism, taxpayer dollars are underwriting the profits of largely multinational or international companies to build wind and solar farms across some of the most productive farmland in the country, where this year's grainyards will potentially be the highest ever and stock prices are at record highs.

These wind and solar projects are creating considerable community division. Last week I visited Narrogin, which will soon host three wind farm projects. There is open tension between those who accept the wind farm windfall and those who want to continue farming as their forebears did. Some residents are concerned about visual and noise pollution or are fearful of potential adverse health effects. Landowners and volunteer firefighters who have lived through raging bushfires know a wind farm makes agricultural land and adjacent wildlife havens indefensible by air. Where are the guarantees for environmental restoration at the end of the life of these renewables? Will farmers and shire councils be left with the environmental remediation burden after cashed-up multinationals have cut and run?

But the renewable energy fallout doesn't stop here for the good people of O'Connor, where the most popular vehicles for work and leisure are the Toyota HiLux and the Ford Ranger. Labor's vehicle emissions reduction scheme will drive up the price of these vehicles, as electric vehicles are simply not suitable in my electorate, where people can drive up to 600 or 700 kilometres just for a doctor's appointment. At the end of the day, for my electorate it's the hardworking businesses and taxpayers of O'Connor underwriting these projects.

These imposts effectively constitute a carbon tax. Treasury recently referred to the cost per tonne of carbon—which is effectively the same as a carbon tax—as around $65 per tonne to achieve targets of 43 per cent emissions reduction by 2030, and then up to $323 per tonne to reach net zero by 2050. People may recall—and I'm sure people on the other side will recall—that when the Gillard government was unceremoniously dumped in 2013 the carbon price was $23 a tonne.

Now to the impact on agriculture. The CSIRO recently modelled that a carbon cost of $70 per tonne of CO2 would add $150 to $200 per tonne to the cost of urea. The Grattan Institute modelled similar effects on the costs of agricultural chemicals, up five to 15 per cent, and lime and on-farm diesel, also up five to 15 per cent. Just this weekend, climate czar Matt Kean floated the removal of the diesel tax rebate. For a 4,000-hectare WA wheat-sheep farm, this could add more than $200,000 per year in additional costs by 2030.

So, to achieve these net zero goals, we're already decimating the mining industry across my electorate, inflicting serious damage on our agriculture and transport industries and hitting the hip pockets of everyday people living in O'Connor, all for a climate goal that most of the international community is coming to realise will never be reached. The only thing we're on track for is impoverishing our great country, for no gain to the global climate.

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