Sean Bell (NSW, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

You can feel the panic from the Albanese Labor government as their green energy transition obsession starts to fall apart. Where is this planet coming from? There was a piece published this morning in a renewable advocacy newsletter under the headline, 'One Nation now represents two of Australia's best wind and solar regions, and they think it's a scam'. That's correct. One Nation has consistently said net zero is a scam, and we have said regional communities are being forced to carry the cost. We have said productive farmland should not be sacrificed for industrial-scale solar factories, wind projects and transmission corridors.

And here is the part Labor cannot bring itself to understand: One Nation was listening to the people of Farrer. They have not been duped. They have been decisive in rejecting the Albanese government's destructive net zero obsession, and maybe if you'd run a candidate you would have heard them. Farrer is not some theoretical line on a bureaucrat's map. It takes in the South West Renewable Energy Zone. It is affected by Project EnergyConnect and the proposed VNI West transmission corridor. According to the industry's own reporting, it contains more than 200 wind, solar and battery projects in various stages of development. That means that, in one of the most Labor renewable-saturated electorates in the country, One Nation's opposition to net zero was not a barrier; it was decisive in our success.

Across Australia, support for net zero looks a lot less impressive once the people who live next to it are asked to pay for it, host it and live beside it. Australians' land, communities and power bills should not be sacrificed for a target that keeps pushing the price of electricity up. Their lives get more expensive, government becomes more intrusive and the words they hear from government become less honest. Labor see regional Australia as a dumping ground for their climate ideology. One Nation sees farmers, families, small businesses and communities who deserve affordable, cheap energy and the right to say no to Labor's net zero obsession, which is what they did on the weekend.