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

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Government to scrap its net-zero emissions target and instead prioritise providing Australian families, farmers, businesses and industry with cheap and reliable energy, to protect jobs, ensure energy security, lower the cost of living and restore Australia's economic competitiveness.

Net zero—we have schoolchildren in the gallery, and I think that this is great debate for them to hear, moving forward. What we've found is that net zero has not been explained or debated, and we have no indication of what has been taught to children in school. A lot of the schoolchildren these days are crying and upset because they feel the world is coming to an end. I tell you something: it's not. It's not coming to an end. The world's not coming to an end over climate change. It's being pushed by those who are going to make a lot of money out of it.

The climate has always changed. Go back over the centuries. If you look at the sun now, they predict it is six degrees hotter than it was three million years ago. Do you think that's because of carbon emissions? They say 'global emissions'; our emissions now, in Australia, are only one per cent of global emissions. China, India and the United States are putting out 50 per cent of global emissions—but guess what? China doesn't have to sign up to anything reining in their global emissions until 2060. For India, it's 2070. America is not even signed up to it. So why are we destroying our economy, our way of life and our standard of living?

This has become a political football for people to use to gain votes. There's scaremongering that goes on with the younger generation. We cannot even refer to temperatures before 1910—'Oh, we can't discuss that!' Australia is the land of floods and drought. It's in our history books. If you go back years, we used to have an inland ocean in Australia. Did we have industrialisation? Did we see petroleum products used back then? No, we didn't.

Look at the ice age that the world had. The Thames froze over in the 1400s. That wasn't due to human emissions. Human emissions are only responsible for three per cent of carbon emissions; 97 per cent comes from natural sources, like soil or volcanos or oceans, which emit and absorb carbon dioxide. But we're going to blame the humans for this so that we can therefore move forward and impose restrictions on people.

What's going to happen in the future? I'll tell you. This was all set up under Agenda 21. It started with Maurice Strong in the 1970s. It's basically about Agenda 21 controlling the plebs; that's what it is. We're going to have class distinction here. We're going to have a lower class of people, and we're going to have those—the rich—who can pay for it. I'll tell you the future: people will actually be controlled on what they eat, where they move, what cars they drive and how far they go. You won't have the freedom to travel, because it's all about climate change—'You're going to destroy the earth, and we can't allow that to happen!'

Carbon emissions were lower after industrialisation happened. Scientists debate the issue of whether carbon follows temperature or temperature follows carbon. That's a lot to debate. Does anyone talk about volcano eruptions? What about all of those emissions? There are supposedly geologists and scientists that have said there are about a million active volcanos in our oceans around the world. Has anyone stated the damage they may be doing?

You can't turn it around by taxing people to the hilt, which is driving up the cost of living and putting people in a position where they cannot afford their bills, their houses, their rent, or anything. This is all driven up because of the high cost of electricity. Don't think that, just because you put in wind turbines and solar panels, that's the answer to it. It's not the answer. You're charging people the cost of $50 billion plus through all these renewable scams that you've got and the scaremongering that goes into it. It's not producing reliable, affordable energy. We've lost our industries—our manufacturing—and there's a high cost of living to everyone, and the lights are still going to go out! You're heading down a path; you're destroying this economy. You're destroying our way of life in Australia. It's a scam that you're pushing onto the Australian people. It's a real shame on Labor that you are continuing down this path. You never allow real debate in this parliament, or put up the real scientists. Let's take it to the public. Let's have a debate in public so that the people can be a part of it. You're affecting their lives, so I think they should be a part of it.