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

One Nation agrees with Senator Pocock that protection of the natural environment is a fundamental duty of any government. I do, though, disagree with Senator Pocock on the definition of environmental protection. ABARES executive director Dr Jared Greenville said last December that research indicates that projected land-based carbon sequestration goals for our net zero transition will require sequestration projects across 18 million hectares by 2050. While some of this land is co-used, agricultural land locked up for carbon credits is not environmental land. Inevitably it becomes a refuge for pests which infect local farms and devastate native fauna and flora. Carbon dioxide farming is the enemy of the natural environment and the enemy of food production.

Add to this total the 205,000 hectares of farmland and native forests which are being clear felled for the construction of wind turbines and access roads, plus the land for the 1.25 billion solar panels needed to reach net zero—that's billion with a 'b'. Then add the 20,000 kilometres of new transmission lines necessary to take power from where it is being generated to where it is needed. Each transition line runs through an easement, usually 75 metres wide, of clear felled land. In 2020 the AEMO cost estimate for most of the transmission line projects was $8.5 billion. Now the transmission line cost is estimated to be at least $120 billion and is more likely to blow out beyond $200 billion. Add another $160 billion for wind and solar generators and we have a $350 billion net zero cost being financed with high-cost loans, which in turn blows out the total 35-year outlay to above $1 trillion.

For environmentally destructive projects like Snowy 2 and for most of the wind projects in North Queensland, those transmission easements run through forests of national significance. I've been there, in the very forests this motion is calling to protect. They're the same projects in which so-called green environmentalists are installing wind turbines and blowing the tops off mountains to make space for the huge concrete bases of massive wind turbines.

Here's what I don't understand. Here's a sensible motion about the need to protect our beautiful environment, yet the motion ignores the massive environmental damage from net zero measures. How can anyone look at one of Australia's beautiful landscapes scarred with wind turbines, solar panels, access roads and transmission lines and think: no damage here; this is beautiful. No, it's not. It's vandalism. This is not just happening on land. Offshore wind turbines harm the environment. A new study in Science Advances shows that offshore wind turbines actually warm the sea surface. Turbines slow the wind. This weakens mixing, shuts down upwelling and in turn traps heat at the surface. This changes the microclimate for more than 10 kilometres behind and stirs up sediment which interferes with marine life, including whales. Add this to bird kills, underwater noise and microplastic shedding and the picture is clear: offshore wind isn't solving an environmental problem; it's creating one. This does not even take into account the environmental cost of manufacture, transport, insulation, maintenance, decommissioning, disposal and remediation of massive wind turbines.

One Nation will care for the natural environment. We will ensure that the land is in the hands of the best stewards: farmers. We will cancel the entire project and protect those beautiful landscapes from net zero vandalism, returning land, where possible, to its best use, be that farming or native forests. Unfortunately, we can't put the tops back on mountains. That damage is there for eternity—a testament to hubris and the tragedy of the paradox of virtue. It's the killing of the environment in the name of saving the environment. One Nation is now the party of the environment.