Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

If Senator Pauline Hanson had her way, she would rip solar panels off every house and rooftop across the country. That is how obsessed Senator Hanson is when it comes to renewable energy and to people who are trying to do their best to reduce their power bills and reduce pollution at the same time.

Thirty-four per cent of Queenslanders have solar on their roofs. Senator Pauline Hanson, One Nation, want to rip them off, rip away that money and rip away that support, and, instead, spend billions of dollars building coal-fired power stations. How are we going to pay for that? People's taxes are going to go up. People's taxes are going to go up because no bank and no investors want to build these things. So we're going to rip money out of the hands of regular, everyday Australians and hand it to big coal companies so that they can create dirty power and charge households and small businesses exorbitant bills in order to power their homes and their shopfronts. Senator Pauline Hanson wants to take money from everyday Australians and give it to coal companies, and she will increase taxes on her way through. This is the type of loony, whack-job policy coming from One Nation and now being supported by people like Senator Cory Bernardi and our own former Prime Minister Tony Abbott—whack job after whack job after whack job!

Thank goodness Australians are smarter than this. They love their solar on their roofs and they love their renewable energy target. The poll out today in The Australian newspaper shows huge support for supporting renewables—huge support. Sixty-three per cent of people across the country want the renewable energy target and support for renewables to stay in place because they want cheaper power and they want it to be reliable. They also want to reduce carbon emissions and reduce pollution. Whether the whack jobs in this place believe it or not, climate change is real, it's getting worse and Australians want us to do something about it. Senator Malcolm Roberts of course stood here in the chamber and gave us one of his amazing, wide-ranging speeches about how terrible everything is because he doesn't believe in it. Senator Roberts, your own empirical evidence lacking in your own citizenship case means that that may have been your final speech in this place. I'm not sure how we're going to cope without a good giggle on a Monday morning!