Billions on the Line for Net Zero

These Appropriation Bills allocates an additional $9 billion in spending for the current financial year, with roughly one-third ($2.9 billion) directed toward “net zero” measures.

This Labor government is using an accounting trick by borrowing money and on-lending it, keeping $33 billion in “off-the-books” expenditure out of the formal budget deficit. This money will result in financial losses. If these projects were viable, private enterprise would be funding them.

Net-Zero infrastructure (solar panels, wind turbines, batteries) has short lifespans, requiring multiple replacements before 2050 and 2060, incurring massive, overlooked installation, maintenance and disposal/ remediation.

Unlike the mining industry, “renewable” energy projects cause permanent environmental damage to landscapes without requiring environmental bonds for remediation.

Independent groups like Net Zero Australia and Bloomberg estimates that the total economic cost of the transition ranges from trillions of dollars up to $9 trillion, while asserting that government spending on net zero has surged by 400% between 2022 and 2026.

Transcript

In accordance with the arrangements made with the whips of the major parties, I seek leave to continue my remarks, and I express my regret that I wasn’t here at the start of the debate. 

Leave granted. 

I’ll continue my speech from the other night. Decarbonisation now extends right through the bureaucracy and agencies. There are decarbonisation offices in every government department, plus the net zero reporting, government grants to industry and academia to research this made-up problem. It really is a fabricated nonproblem; a monstrous, calamitous fabrication that is costing the Australian people dearly. Some of these grants are substantial, including $444 million to the Great Barrier Reef Authority to counter the effects of climate change. I’ll talk more about that in a minute. The further we get into the pointless, disastrous ‘transition’, the more that the burden of funding of these measures will fall on the taxpayer through direct payments, loans and sovereign guarantees, not to mention the inefficiencies—sorry, Siri is trying to talk to me. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator O’Neill): Siri doesn’t have the call, Senator Roberts! 

I’ll pay that one! 

Senator Cox: You were caught out at estimates doing that. Come on, now. 

Senator McKim interjecting— 

You’ve got a fertile imagination. Conspiracy theorist, is it? These measures will cost so much in the years ahead that, ultimately, the government of the day will be faced with a choice of social security, free health and education or saving the planet from a natural trace atmospheric gas that’s essential to all life on earth. One Nation does not worship the sky god of warming. We know the climate varies naturally and inherently and that nothing in the current data suggests the variation is outside of normal cycles. 

Honourable senators interjecting— 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! 

We have 24,000 datasets from around the world, including CSIRO and BOM, and they prove no change in climate at all, just natural, inherent variation superimposed on cycles. A One Nation government will terminate net zero measures and withdraw from international agreements which provide the heads of power the requirement on our government to spend this money—not necessary. We will immediately suspend all government activity associated with net zero and review all expenditure and loans to see what can be clawed back legitimately under the contract terms. I suspect noncompliance with contract requirements—especially around supply agreements—is widespread, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. We will terminate all ongoing subsidies where that option is available under the contract, and we will renegotiate contracts where it’s not. This will save around $10 billion a year in recurring expenditure, which we will put towards eliminating the deficit—$10 billion taken out of this year’s budget figures. 

I foreshadow my amendment No. 3662 in the committee stage to return these bills to the Treasury to have net zero spending removed and ask for the Senate’s support. It’s time to call out this parasitic net zero nonsense and get back to the real business of government: making people’s lives better, not harder, as net zero measures currently do. 

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Just before you resume your seat, Senator Roberts, it would assist the Senate if you would move your motion. I believe it has been circulated as a second reading amendment. 

I move: 

Omit all words after “That”, substitute “further consideration of the bills be made an order of the day for the first sitting day after amendments are circulated removing all funding for net zero measures and the administration of net zero measures”.