Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the final report of the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy, together with accompanying documents. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This was an eight-month inquiry of a select committee initiated by the Greens at a time when some of the greatest challenges we face—and I'm talking about humanity here, all of us, all around the world—seem almost insurmountable—challenges like climate change and the attacks on the integrity of our information systems, the war of disinformation that we find ourselves in globally now. The Greens initiated this Senate inquiry because we believe, just like the United Nations, that deliberate, deceptive, misleading information is undermining climate action globally, and we also take seriously the warnings of the World Economic Forum, two years in a row, in 2024 and 2025, that the biggest short-term risks to humanity are disinformation campaigns—deliberate, deceptive, misleading campaigns. We're not just talking about whether data is factual or not; we're talking about the manipulation of public discourse on critical matters of policy like health care and climate change, just to mention a few. The World Economic Forum said that the biggest long-term risk to humanity was these disinformation campaigns and how easily they're enabled in our modern information system with massive tech platforms. Combined with the impacts of climate change, it is the biggest threat facing humanity. So here we have the United Nations saying that the biggest stumbling block to climate action globally is disinformation, a lack of information integrity and attacks on information integrity, and we have the World Economic Forum naming it up.

This inquiry was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. We looked at the information integrity systems in Australia and how they function in relation to the issue of climate change. The reason this inquiry was initiated by the Greens, supported by the government and voted for by this Senate chamber was to coincide with the COP of truth, COP30 in Brazil last year. For the first time ever, at this COP—this multilateral agreement where nations from around the world came together to discuss how to act on our climate commitments to prevent further climate breakdown and climate catastrophe—information integrity on climate change was on the agenda.

I'm very pleased to say that this committee and this report—I'm glad it's over; I'm glad it's done, and we've taken a significant amount of evidence—have been taken very seriously by the Senate, even though, yes, at times, it's been controversial. I think that is the nature of asking people to reflect on what they believe is integrity in the information being provided on a debate like the one on climate change, which has been very politically contentious in the past. But it isn't actually contentious amongst the public and amongst citizens, most of whom want action on climate change.

We can't be silent in the face of disinformation—dangerous, destructive disinformation—and deliberate agendas being peddled for commercial reasons: to protect the profits of big multinational oil and gas companies, fossil fuel corporations. There is an abundance of evidence around the world about the role they have played for decades, just like the tobacco industry, to sow doubt and undermine and obstruct climate action globally, and it isn't just through our political systems. When people think of the climate wars, they think of politicians arguing over policy, but we need to think of climate policy not as having failed in places like the US or Australia for decades but as having been defeated, because politicians are part of this infected ecosystem but it is these structures built around peddling misinformation and disinformation and undermining integrity on climate change that have enabled this obstruction of climate policy globally. It's been picked up by the UN and the World Economic Forum and, may I say, so many experts, both in Australia and overseas, that provided evidence to this committee.

I wanted to say that, even though it was at times contentious—this very unique select committee—what we have before us today in the Senate chamber is a majority report that's been signed onto by the Greens; the government, the Labor Party; the Liberal Party, with Senator McLachlan, who's here tonight; and Senator David Pocock. That's a significant achievement, because everybody recognises how serious this issue is and the fact that we need to act on it. And that's where I'd like to finish my contribution.

There is so much constructive energy, thought and work that has gone into this report. I want to thank the secretariat especially for the incredible work they have done. We went all around the country. We took evidence from experts, community groups and the secretariat have done an incredible amount of work to keep the committee on an even keel, to keep it fair, to keep the inquiry going. The result before us today, I hope, is the first step for this Australian parliament to take towards developing a blueprint, a framework, a comprehensive set of solutions for dealing with this global attack on information integrity that has undermined climate action for decades now. It has been especially prevalent in Australia, and that information is in this report.

Every time we see the undermining of climate action happen, we need to call it out. We need to raise public awareness of the actors who are working behind the scenes, often in the shadows. We need to call out the denial machine and all its various components—the conservative think tanks, the PR firms, the Murdoch press, the conservative press and all the other elements of this machine—that has, over so many years, successfully looked like it was a genuine opposition to climate change when really the evidence before us says that it is a small group of very well-resourced, very powerful and very noisy people who have done so much damage to something as simple as acting on a changing climate that presents so many challenges to us. And it's not just damage to nature and to this planet that we all love and live on; it's to our economy, to our communities. And it will only get worse in the future. This is the challenge before us: recognise that climate policy globally, and in Australia, has been under relentless assault and will still be under relentless assault. This is a war, an information war, that we simply have to win. This is the great challenge of our time.

I want to thank all senators who participated in this. I hope this is just the first step and that there are other opportunities for us, as a parliament, to build on this work, just as this work is built on several inquiries prior to it. The recommendations aren't controversial, and that's why all major parties have signed on to this, but it is essential that we keep the momentum going. I'm glad that it's over. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here. I'm also looking forward to the contributions of other senators who have been on this critical, unique, important inquiry.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a war going on in the Middle East that has brought into sharp focus the gaps in our energy resilience. But there is another war, a war that is being waged in the shadows—predominantly in regional Australia—that is simultaneously undermining our energy resilience. This is an information war of false and misleading narratives that are sowing division and doubt, and sometimes leading to outright hostility, undermining renewable energy.

In regional communities a culture of fear has developed, which is silencing democratic debate and allowing these false and misleading claims to thrive rather than be tested and challenged. This report highlights a playbook featuring a variety of actors who attack credible voices like researchers and scientists, or farmers with lived experience of hosting renewables, while at the same time propagating dubious or fringe claims against renewables. It is backed by a web of vested interests, powerful vested interests. Fossil fuel companies for sure, but they are the usual suspects. But this report has unveiled a whole array of other bad-faith actors who walk among us, quasi-scientists and pseudo-experts, and all of these claims are amplified on social media. The social media companies are as culpable. They have turned a blind eye, and they are adept at the tools of the trade—algorithmic bias, deep-fake interference, trolls and bots pushing these false and misleading claims, preying on the legitimate fears of ordinary Australians and thereby making them more unsure and uncertain. Social media has had a polarising effect in these communities, and for small tightknit communities this is incredibly divisive and damaging—damaging to relationships, damaging to mental health. Maintaining the status quo is a deliberate strategy, and it is designed to grind the gears of Australia's energy shift. Lining the pockets of vested interests is the name of the game, and regional communities pay.

For regional communities, the economic benefits of large-scale renewable projects are indisputable, ranging from jobs to alternative income streams for farmers, buffering them from the long-term impacts of climate variability, and, in best cases, sharing the love, the benefits and the income with the wider community, which is crying out for infrastructure, which is crying out for new clubs, which is crying out for better roads, which is crying out for football fields, which is crying out for essential services. For coastal communities, offshore wind exerts a gravitational pull. It attracts manufacturing, blue economy industries, like low-carbon liquid fuel development, and, most importantly, it creates jobs, which are essential for those workers who are currently in declining fossil fuel industries. With billions of dollars locked up in over 130 renewable energy projects that have been approved by this Labor government, regional communities are in the economic box seat.

Despite concerted attempts and efforts to obstruct the energy shift, aided and abetted by a swath of politicians, many of whom are in this chamber, Australia is making steady progress. For the first time, Australia's main grid hit a new milestone in the last quarter of 2025: 51 per cent renewable energy, overtaking for the first time the contribution from coal. Our homes are flush with rooftop solar—one in three homes. Households have also enthusiastically embraced our cheaper home batteries scheme, with over 280 installations and counting. Regional households are actually overrepresented, accounting for 40 per cent of home batteries, despite the fact that they are less than 30 per cent of Australia's population.

In terms of transport, we've seen a big spike in EV sales and interest. EV sales hit a record in December of last year, spiking at nearly 17 per cent, with over 450,000 of these vehicles sold. We introduced tax breaks and new vehicle emissions standards to deliver greater choice, and we've seen a surge in EV models on the market. When we came to government in 2022, there were 56 models. There are now over 150. And we've also introduced concessional finance for key workers. Uptake has been highest in outer suburban areas, and the EV discount is dominated by working Australians, from nurses to teachers, police and tradies. We're continuing to roll out and invest in EV charging infrastructure, with now over 1,300 public stations installed, up from around 290 in March 2022 when we came to government. With a further $40 million, we will be installing kerbside EV charging on light poles throughout Australia. We're also investing in truck electrification. This has been assisted with concessional finance and grants for charging infrastructure that has taken up by some of Australia's biggest logistics companies.

With a target of 62 per cent to 70 per cent emissions reductions by 2035 in an increasingly fractious world, we need to double down rather than reignite the coalition driven climate wars. Amidst cost-of-living pressures, households, including those without solar, in several states can look forward to three hours of free electricity from the middle of this year through our Solar Sharer scheme. This is a glimpse of that energy-abundant future that is ours for the taking. We have a solar energy glut in this country, and it is starting to pay dividends. This is how we are enabling Australians to take control of their energy destiny. Share the love—the solar love, that is—and realise enduring cost-of-living relief. Our net zero pathway—underwritten by renewables, backed by storage, pumped hydro and gas—is delivering cost-of-living relief, energy resilience and reliability against a backdrop of a global oil shock. Geopolitical volatility only sharpens the imperative for Australia to double down on energy independence, recognising that, unlike fuel imports, the sun cannot be blockaded.

For regional communities, the stakes are even higher. Primary producers, transport companies and industries big and small are centred in our regions. To that end, the expansion of renewable energy is critical infrastructure, which will not only replace ageing coal fired power but bake in independence at scale in the heart of these communities. We are also investing $1.1 billion in low-carbon fuels through our Future Made in Australia agenda. Again, in the box seat will be our farmers, who will supply the sorghum, the canola, the sugar and the waste products towards biodiesel, sustainable aviation fuel and synthetic fuels that will be made in the regions, harnessing cheap renewable energy from the regions. Australians do not wish to be beholden to foreign interests for their energy needs, and by staying the course articulated by our government, through our ambitious but achievable energy goals, they need not be.

I thank the Senate and I thank my colleagues for this important inquiry. We uncovered a disturbing degree of activity and manipulation in the community that is dividing regional Australians and thereby hurting them. The people who claim to represent regional Australia are doing them a disservice by denying them jobs, denying them financial security and denying them energy independence. We need to go further, and this report is just the beginning. I thank Senator Whish-Wilson for his leadership, and I thank all my colleagues. I thank the secretariat and all those participants who contributed. (Time expired)

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy's final report is a substantial piece of work. Over the course of this inquiry, the committee received 243 submissions, held 11 public hearings and has produced a comprehensive report that reflects the scale and seriousness of this issue. I want to sincerely thank everyone who contributed to this inquiry. I thank the individuals, experts, researchers and organisations who took the time to make submissions and appear as witnesses. Your evidence has been critical in helping us understand the depth of the challenge we face. I also want to acknowledge the committee secretariat for their exceptional work in coordinating an inquiry of this size and complexity. These processes simply do not function without their professionalism and dedication. I'd also like to thank all committee members: Senator Ananda-Rajah for her exceptional work, Senator Canavan, Senator Darmanin, Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator McLachlan. I was pleased to support the committee's report and also to provide additional comments alongside Senator Andrew McLachlan.

I'd like to take a moment to thank in particular Senator Whish-Wilson. Senator Whish-Wilson has made an exceptional contribution to public life, and he will be sorely missed in this place when he leaves. His leadership on issues of environmental protection, particularly our oceans, and the passion that he brings for our incredible oceans is a real testament to him and his team. I'd also like to thank Senator McLachlan for his leadership throughout this inquiry. He brings a calm, analytical approach in an area that can often be highly contested, and it was a pleasure working with him in co-authoring additional comments.

While we support the report, our additional comments make clear that the evidence before the committee points to the need for real reform. We have called for a set of practical changes: truth-in-political-advertising laws, action to address bots and inauthentic accounts, transparency around platform algorithms, greater user control over what they see online, and long-overdue reform of our lobbying laws. While there is broad consensus on many of these issues, we have not seen the level of urgency from the government that ought to exist. This report, as previous contributors have said, is a really important step, but it needs to be the beginning of meaningful action to address the huge problem of climate misinformation that we face in this country.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report of the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy. I too thank the chair for his leadership—a firm hand on the tiller—as well as all my fellow committee members, the secretariat and all those that made submissions. I also thank the generosity of Senator Pocock for working with me to draft some additional comments. I would say that he and his staff carried probably a heavier burden, but I thank him for his generosity in allowing me to make a contribution on the issues that are important to both of us.

For me, this inquiry was important because it's about the public debate and how we construct the public debate. We are no longer debating in the public square. We are debating online, and therefore there is great risk for manipulation, both with misinformation and disinformation. We are struggling with this, not just on our energy transition and climate change responses but on a whole variety of issues, but it is particularly acute in the area of the responses to climate change. Why? Because our democracy is grappling with a transition. Whether you agree with how the transition is being conducted, which is where the debate really should be, it requires winners and losers in an economy, and that drives behaviours. Not all of them are acceptable. Those that seek to restrain transition or progress will use any measures at their disposal to disrupt the open, transparent and fair conversations that need to occur. Unless they occur, we cannot have a proper conversation on the trade-offs. Much of the debate, even in this place, is about advancement or economic advancement without pricing in the cost to nature. In fact, the actual damage to nature is conveniently left off many contributions in the debate, particularly in this place.

When I was thinking about this, I thought of two quotes. My friends in the Greens will just have to endure conservative environmentalist quotes! One is from Russell Kirk, a well-known United States conservative environmentalist. He said:

In our 20th century, humankind is proud of "conquering nature," by tools that vary from the bulldozer to insecticides. But like other merciless conquests, this victory may end in the destruction of the victor.

What he's trying to say is this is critically important. Thus, our debates must be at the highest level. Yet there is so much—I actually learned this on this inquiry—aggressive action, from fossil fuel companies in particular, to protect their market. That's okay as long as it's declared and we know what their status is in the debate. But it's cloaked. It's hidden. Therefore, a member of the public is not fully informed to be able to weigh up whether they wish to support a fossil fuel company or a renewable company. In fact, I don't necessarily see it as a binary decision.

Another quote that came to mind was from a former conservative environment minister Lord Deben, who is one of my personal heroes. He says:

We need to make the transition as easy as possible, but we mustn't pretend it isn't going to have difficulties. You cannot say to people what is being said: that we are going to deliver net-zero in a way that nobody notices. That is just not possible. What you have to do is first of all to recognise that we have to deliver it. And secondly you have to recognise that we have to deliver it in a way which is fair to the people …

That, I think, sets the stage for what this inquiry was trying to examine. We were very conscious—everyone on that committee—that we did not want to trample on the rights of free speech, because the whole point of having an open and transparent debate is to underpin freedom of speech and, from freedom of speech, have active and engaged decision-making of the body politic and the community that supports the body politic. As a consequence of sitting on this committee, I am probably more worried about the nature of the debate, online in particular, than I was before I started, so I thank the chair for his initiative. I would encourage members to read the report and the additional comments from all members.

My additional comments with Senator Pocock focused on other issues, such as lobbying and transparency about algorithms, and other pillars that we both saw as shoring up the whole of the body politic, which I think is under increasing stress. All of us have been made targets of social media campaigns. If you haven't, you're lucky. But it will happen to you one day, and that may be on any issue that has vexed. In many ways, it's undermining what we're trying to do in this chamber. I would like, as everyone knows in this chamber, nature to be at the centre of all decision-making. But I should be taken on on that prospect in this chamber, on television, and the trade-off should be put to me to justify, which I am happy to do. I thank all my fellow committee members.

Lisa Darmanin (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, would like to associate my comments with those of the others who have spoken before me as members of the committee on this report. I'm very pleased to support the tabling of the report and the recommendations that we have collectively come up with. I'd like to thank all of my Senate colleagues, but in particular the chair, Senator Whish-Wilson, and the deputy chair, Senator Ananda-Rajah, as well as the secretariat for, as Senator Pocock said, the tower of work that they did to support us while we worked through the thousands and thousands of pages of evidence to come up with what you see before you today.

As has been mentioned, we heard a lot of important evidence throughout the inquiry—a lot of it undermining community confidence in our important and necessary transition to a renewable future—about the impacts of mis- and disinformation, social media and the slopaganda that is circulating amongst us and our communities. We heard from very, very courageous communities, workers and organisations who highlighted the challenges in working to move to a renewable energy economy and supporting our community in the transition. We cannot afford to get this wrong. We cannot afford to get it wrong for our kids and for our future. I think this inquiry really highlighted some of the challenges that are before us and that will be before those who come after us as the world moves so quickly.

We also heard some excellent examples of how transition can be managed well in communities. I think about some evidence we heard from the Gippsland region in Victoria. We heard evidence from those who worked together, who engaged very early in the process, a long time before anything started to happen. We had organisations building trust with community, building trust with community organisations, working with local government and building confidence amongst those in the local area to really understand what was happening in their communities and why it was happening. They were expending important resources early so that people had absolute trust and were able to feel safe, to ask questions, to debate, to access reliable and credible information, to make their own decisions and to come up with conclusions that support a just transition for people in such a way that people can feel confident and able to speak their minds.

There is absolutely a debate that has to be had, but the debate has to be based on facts. It has to be based on people being able to trust where the information is coming from. It needs to be based on credible organisations and actors and transparency about who is behind what is being proposed, what is being said and who is funding such debate. So I really want to shout out those communities who have continued to engage in processes when it has been difficult and those organisations who have supported those communities. As I said, there is an important role that organisations like local government can also play in building trust and engendering transparency on what is going on as communities make a massive transition that will have lasting impacts on them for a long time to come. Some of the lessons, clearly, are around engaging early, building trust and credibility and the importance of our public institutions in that process.

That goes to the broader agenda of this government, which has received a mandate from the Australian people to continue to work on combating climate change, moving to a renewable energy future and making the energy system fairer. Since the Albanese government was elected in 2022, we have lifted our country's 2030 emissions reduction target by more than half, from 26 per cent to 43 per cent. Having the confidence of the community in a renewable energy transition process in the regions and all throughout our country is critical in enabling us to continue to meet that target.

Since returning to government, we have set our 2035 target of 62 to 70 per cent on 2005 emissions levels. In setting this target, we have accepted the Climate Change Authority's advice. To progress towards achieving our 2035 target, we have done a range of things to transition and progress, and I think this inquiry and this report also forms part of that work that must continue, along with things like establishing a new $5 billion Net Zero Fund in the National Reconstruction Fund to help industrial facilities decarbonise and scale up more renewables that can power communities and low-emissions manufacturing. We have invested $1.1 billion to encourage more production of clean fuels here in Australia. Those are just a few things that build on our achievements over the past three years.

Importantly, there is a large part of our community that accepts the need to transition, and the uptake of solar rooftop in our country is living proof of that. We have reduced the cost of typical home batteries to support that solar transition and to build on the success of Australians who have embraced that technology so well. And, of course, we've also put net zero in the objects of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Act and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act to ensure that they keep this goal at front of mind when making decisions, and we have made it relevant to other key agencies, such as Infrastructure Australia and Export Finance Australia. All of these levers form part of what the fabric of this report is also about. Of course, more broadly, we've restored Australia's international climate leadership, restoring our credibility with the world, including the Pacific.

Emission projections confirm these policies have us on track to reach our 43 per cent 2030 emissions reduction target, but we know there's much more to do, and hopefully the recommendations in this report can continue to support the work that we need to do, because we absolutely cannot afford to go backwards. I would also urge, as Senator McLachlan did, that people who are interested in this read the report and, importantly, the recommendations that we've come up with to address the enormous challenges that have been highlighted by this inquiry.

In conclusion, I think the final thing that I would say is that I still feel fairly new to the Senate, even though I wasn't part of the class of 2025—the 48th Parliament—but I think I'm beginning to understand the importance of Senate inquiry work and the work that you can collectively do with colleagues across the aisle, from all parties, to come up with a report like this. I think we had our final meeting yesterday—was it just yesterday? Everybody in the room was reflecting on the work that was done and how proud we are to have achieved a report where we could agree on the recommendations. I think that is a Senate committee working at its best, when we can all keep our eye on the main objective that we're trying to achieve here.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.