Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Blaming Ukraine for a problem that has been caused entirely in this country leads to misleading the population of Australia and hiding the problem. The real problem is our energy prices. Coal prices have gone up internationally but not for Australian contracts feeding power stations in this country. Stop misleading the parliament. Coal prices that feed our electricity in this country are still on the same long-term contracts at $80 to $100 a tonne as they had been before Ukraine became an issue. What's really killing this country is investment in solar and wind, which are inherently more expensive because they produce far less and lower-density electricity and so their unit costs of electricity are far higher.

Every time a coal-fired power station is shut in this country, we see the spike and an increase in electricity prices. Minister, it is important that governments in this country start facing up to the reality rather than blaming something in Ukraine. Ukraine had nothing to do with the continuation of coal prices in this country not rising at all. It had nothing to do with energy prices rising due to solar and wind and subsidies and now you safeguard mechanism adding to fines for coal-fired power. These are the things that are crippling our country and crippling our productive capacity.