Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson has submitted a proposal under standing order 75 today as shown at item 14 of today's order of business:

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.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with informal arrangements made by the whips.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support this motion, because net zero is not working. It's very simple. When Australia signed up to net zero emissions just over three years ago, the people that were pushing net zero emissions said that it would deliver cheaper power. They said that it would create heaps of new jobs. They said that we'd be joining the rest of the world, who were, apparently, going to act on these things. On all of those fronts, those that pushed net zero have been wrong—not just by a little bit, but totally and utterly wrong.

On power prices since we signed up to net zero: we were promised cheaper power. Is anyone paying less for their power? I don't think so. Electricity prices have actually gone up 31 per cent in the last three years, and gas prices have gone up 40 per cent. Now the government doesn't even promise lower power prices. They've given it up. They've just waved the white flag.

On more jobs, we were promised all of these jobs in hydrogen and critical minerals. Well, we've lost our nickel industry. We've totally lost it. Ten thousand jobs have been lost in critical minerals in Western Australia since we started with net zero. We lost it because Indonesia has no shyness from building coal-fired power stations, and we were trying to make green nickel. We lost it. Now we're on the cusp of losing copper and aluminium jobs. The government is having to bail out billions of dollars for them as well.

Other countries aren't acting either. We were told other countries were acting. The United States has pulled out. China, India, Indonesia and Mongolia have increased their annual coalmining by 1.2 billion tonnes a year since the so-called signing up to net zero. It is just not working, so it's time to recognise that. When something is not working, you stop it and you do something else. That's why we need to stop net zero.

While I do support this motion, I do want to note that One Nation is playing catch-up here. My colleague and good friend Barnaby Joyce, the member for New England, has, in the other place, moved a law to repeal net zero. While I accuse One Nation of playing catch-up, I too must say that when Barnaby told me a few weeks ago he was going to do this, the first thing I thought was, 'Why didn't I think of that?' I've got to give him credit for doing this. He's put it on the agenda. He's dominating the media and discussions. It's about time we have a debate on this. I'm happy to have this debate too, but we are here to make laws, not just statements. We've got to repeal this rubbish so that finally we act in the interests of Australians again.

Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's not surprising to see this motion moved by One Nation, but the real suspense it provokes is in relation to what the Liberal Party and the National Party are going to do. Less than a week ago, Mr Joyce and Mr McCormack were on the front page of the Australian in a unity ticket to ditch net zero. The question is whether the Liberal Party of Australia is going to learn the lessons of the election but also learn the lessons of what's happening in our climate and our economy and actually take a step back to the reasonable part of Australian politics, or lurch right once again and double down on the policies of the Dutton opposition and their head-in-the-sand approach to climate change.

A net zero emissions target is not something to be feared; it's an opportunity for Australia to capitalise on a changing global economy while addressing an important issue that requires addressing, not just from an economic perspective but for our survival on the planet. To ignore the need to tackle climate change and to reach net zero emissions is to put our people, our farmers, our businesses, our livelihoods and our industries at risk. It's no secret that this transition is going to be challenging, but doing nothing will be much more costly. Deloitte estimates that over 50 years unchecked climate change would, in average annual terms, reduce Australia's economic growth by three per cent per year. That's why the government's committed to tackling this problem in a certain way and in a responsible way.

Dr Ken Henry, the former secretary of the Treasury, addressed the National Press Club last week, and he said:

The biggest threat to future productivity growth comes from nature itself; more particularly, from its destruction.

It is now well accepted that a degraded natural world poses myriad threats to food systems, provision of clean air and, water and the continuing supply of other ecosystem services critical to production. While those opposite are always happy to use the word 'productivity', they rarely go beyond it and look at the benefits that this transition will have for our productivity and our economy. Longer droughts, bigger floods and more intense bushfires threaten the future of our agricultural sector, a reduction in productivity. In Australia, researchers predict that wheat yield loss may be as high as 27 per cent in parts of northern Victoria in the next 40 years, impacting on food security and food affordability—things that are very important to the people of this side of the house. It is a failure to address climate change and to reach net zero that will hurt our country and its people.

Let's go back to 2020 and a document that was prepared by then minister Angus Taylor, the Technology Investment Roadmap. At that stage, perhaps a more sensible Liberal Party—certainly not as extreme as it is today—told us in that roadmap that low-emissions technologies could position Australia for over $30 billion a year in new export revenue from energy-intensive, low-emissions products by 2040. That's why, in its 2021 report on this, the Business Council of Australia announced its support for reaching net zero. That council, that radical organisation, said:

The pace and scale of change is accelerating globally. Australia is at a crossroads: we can either embrace decarbonisation and seize a competitive advantage in developing new technologies and export industries; or be left behind and pay the price.

…     …     …

The transition … must run in tandem with the nation realising greater economy-wide productivity gains, lifting international competitiveness and improving the ability to attract investment in order to accelerate economic growth and secure Australia's long-term prosperity.

That's the Business Council of Australia, and it speaks to the political extremism and the wander to the right of those opposite that they don't get onboard with these changes.

What has the government done, though? We've seen record levels of renewable energy generation, reaching 46 per cent on the national market at the end of 2024, and we've seen a significant increase in generational capacity. It's not a simple task, but doing this transition positions Australia to be part of a global economic change, it allows us to generate revenue for export industries, and, most importantly, it allows us to play our role in tackling a significant global challenge which is affecting not only our economy but also our ecosystems and our liveability on the planet itself.

So, while the motion from One Nation is not surprising, what is surprising is the speed and the cynical nature with which it has been approached or adopted by those opposite. What remains to be seen is whether the Liberal Party can find some sense and find its way back or whether it remains on the right fringe and denies the existence of this problem.

Debate interrupted.