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

Yes, I will speak to this motion on climate change because I think it's very important. You talk about the science. We've signed up to the Paris Agreement without any real debate on the implications and impact it would have in our country. We're heading down the path of global emissions. People should know that our emissions are one per cent of total world emissions. Australia is at one per cent of carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is a necessary gas, at 0.04 per cent, and therefore it is necessary for growth. If we don't have it, we have no growth whatsoever. So what we're doing is heading down a path of destroying our economy and putting pressure on the cost of living for ordinary Australians. This is what it's all about.

We've lost over 1,400 manufacturing companies since 2023 that have become insolvent. We've lost 30,000 small businesses that have become insolvent. With them have gone jobs. I speak to manufacturing industries, and they're saying they cannot afford the electricity prices driven by this climate change BS that's being pushed by the Labor Party, whose policies are destroying us even further, including their failure on green hydrogen. Some reports say that the money that has gone out the door in subsidies they have given to these companies in Australia amounts to $29 billion. When I investigated this, my estimation is that around $50 billion plus in subsidies have been handed out to companies and everyone who wants to jump on the bandwagon.

I also want to inform the Australian people that this has been an absolute scam that has brainwashed kids in the education system on how climate change is happening. If you oppose it you're called a climate change denier. They talk about the science. Do you know that Senator Roberts would be the most knowledgeable in this area of anyone in this chamber who can debate the issues? Since 2016, he has been asking Senator Waters to have a debate. She won't debate him. They will not debate him—

Because they don't know what they're talking about. They don't understand the science of the whole lot. They don't understand it. What do they have to fear from having a debate? You can't have a real debate. The public need to know what is going on here—the science. You've got a lot of people making a lot of money out of it, at the expense of the Australian people. Why are we chasing our tails trying to get carbon emissions down in our country, which are only one per cent, yet you have China that doesn't have to adhere to it until 2060 and India until 2070 because they are classified as developing nations? China has one of the biggest militaries in the whole world, and it is a developing nation! Most of our imports come from China, a developing nation. Yet we are destroying our economy to appease them on this. That's what I think is ridiculous, because the debate has not been had.

My concern is the cost of living for Australians. I hear from farmers. They can't afford the cost of electricity anymore. The irrigators, the dairy farmers—all these people—can't afford the cost of it. Now, I'll tell you what's going to happen next. We're going to lose a lot of our farming industry. They're going after the farmers out there, because that's 14 per cent of carbon emissions, and they've got to rein it in even more to come up with what they want to do: 43 per cent by 2035, with the carbon emissions of 2030, and then eventually 82 per cent. Other countries around the world—Spain and Portugal—have their lights out. We've had blackouts in this country since we've moved away from the dispatchable power of coal-fired power stations. Please don't think that this is what the climate emissions are. You can build coal-fired power stations now that are over 90 per cent emissions-free. That's not the problem. Why the hell are we digging up our coal and sending it overseas to China, India and other countries to burn to deliver cheap power to their own countries and we're not doing it ourselves? We have been absolute fools! People have been dragged along with this scam and the reduction in our cost of living—that's affecting all of us.

Let's have an open, honest debate and let the people know exactly what is happening in this country, because they've used it for political gain. They don't give a damn about Australian people out there and what they are suffering. It just amazes me. Shame on the whole lot of you. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.