The Great Climate Change Debate

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I have always said I will debate anyone in the country or overseas about the evidence on climate change. The truth is, there is no evidence that CO2 from human production directly causes changes in the climate and needs to be cut.

Transcript

Forward to this all weekend, all week, the great climate change debate. Gee, I’m nervous. I shouldn’t be, I know. But I’m a little nervous. The first time I’ve ever done something like this, live on this programme. Malcolm Roberts from One Nation and also regular caller, Mark. Mark’s the only one, it seems, with the kahunas to take on Malcolm, particularly on a live radio debate. We put it to some Labour MPs to come on, I won’t shame them at the moment by naming them, and they said, “Nope, nope!” But Mark is up to the challenge. Gentleman, are you both there?

G’day, Marcus.

Hi.

G’day, Mark.

All right, now this is the way this is going to work, gentlemen. You will both have two minutes to start. So Malcolm you’ll go first. You’ll plead your case against climate change using, no doubt, your empirical data, all the rest of it. Then Mark, you will respond. You’ll get two minutes. You’ll be on a clock. And then after that, you’ll get two minutes again each for a rebuttal, okay? That sounds okay to you?

Yep.

Sounds good.

All right, now. A couple of rules, no name calling in the rebuttals. All right. Straightaway that’s a no-no. No name calling,

Okay.

Obviously not that you will, but we just have to be a little clear here. No name calling. And if I think you’re getting a little off topic, I’ll pull you up. Are we ready to go?

Yup, we’re ready.

Yeah.

All right, gentlemen. Thank you, the great climate change debate is underway. Malcolm, you’re going to go first, okay? Because I say so, and I will roll your two minutes from now. Climate change, you say, is not real. Tell me why.

I don’t say climate change is not real, Marcus. I say that carbon dioxide from the use of hydrocarbon fuels does not change climate. That’s the core point. What people have to understand that the core point is that they want to tax and cut our carbon dioxide from human activity, farming, agriculture, driving, transport, industry, power stations. So what has to happen? Always, science is decided by the empirical evidence in logical scientific points. What that means is that you have to have empirical data, hard data, within a logical framework that proves cause and effect. And empirical means measured or observed. Actual solid data. So before we can justify cutting human agriculture, driving, industry, power stations, electricity, raise their prices, we have to have hard evidence that temperatures today have been unusually high and continue to rise unusually.

One minute left.

There is no such evidence. Secondly, the cause of any temperature rise is increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There is increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Third thing, they have to prove that the carbon dioxide rising in the atmosphere is due to human production of carbon dioxide. There is no evidence to that effect. Number four, even if everything is correct, and someone provides the data that shows that temperatures are rising unusually in continuing to rise, and that it’s due to human carbon dioxide, they then have to prove that warmer temperatures are harmful to humans, harmful to the planet. Scientists classify earth’s past far warmer periods

20 seconds.

far warmer periods as climate optimums, because warmer periods have been booms for human civilization, nature, and individuals. Cold periods kill more people than warmer periods.

10.

So the next thing I point out is that I’ve done extensive work with the Parliamentary Library, with freedom of information bills, with parliamentarians-

Three.

Themselves. No one is able to

Two. provide that evidence. No one.

All right, okay. Okay. So Malcolm stated his points. Mark, are you ready, mate? You’ll get two minutes on the clock.

Just before I start-

Oh god.

on time.

Yes.

Do you recycle Malcolm? Or do you put it all in the same bin?

Hey Mark, we’ll get to that. We’ll get to that.

No, just out of curiosity. We’ll get to that. Your two minutes is up and in your rebuttal, that’s when you can ask questions of each other, okay?

All right.

All right. All right, Mark. Your two minutes starts now.

Righto. Let’s go back 450 million years. The earth was barren. It’s being bombarded by solar radiation. There was fissures and cracks pumping out carbon dioxide and methane gas. I’ve got a Kelpie chewing up my foot while I’m talking to you. The seas were swarming with jellyfish, and fish, and sharks with big bony plates. The first algae, at that time, began to creep up onto the rocks. Come forward another 50 or 60 million years. They’d turned what they call the Gilboa Forest. They were about five metres high. They had a base like a palm tree with multiple roots. They had a straight trunk. They had fronds like a tree fern. There’s fossil evidence of these from Belgium to New York state, a town called Gilboa funnily enough. Then go back to to about 349 million years ago. We started the Carboniferous Forest. These massive forest. These huge rainstorms, probably like we’ve never seen before, that filled up swamps, carved out canyons, rivers flowing up and everywhere it was just to intense-

One minute. One minute.

And then glaciers begin form ’cause there’s so much oxygen in the atmosphere. But the downside of that was every time there’s an electrical storm, because there’s so much oxygen, there’s these massive fires. And that’s what they reckon kept the forest going because forests, obviously, need carbon dioxide. Then by the end of that time, 299 million years ago, the begin to split up.

30 seconds.

And then we got back to now. Now we’ve got, the atmosphere has changed. In 200 years we’ve dug up so much carbon and burnt it, we’ve changed back to what it was 3 million years ago. So what you’re saying is, Malcolm, it took 200 years to go back to what it was 3 million years ago.

10.

And now you’re saying it doesn’t really matter because we’ve changed 3 million years in atmosphere in 200 years. That doesn’t compute.

All right. All right. Well said. All right. I think that’s pretty good from both of you. Great for a start. So the way this now works, you both had your opening arguments. Now it’s time for rebuttal. Another two minutes for any of the points that Mark’s brought up, Malcolm, you get to rebut. Then Mark, you get your chances as well. You ready to go there, Malcolm?

I am, Marcus.

All right. The clock starts now two more minutes, off you go.

I’ll say it again. What determines science is the use of logical scientific points and that’s the beauty of science. It gets rid of all the crap, all of the opinions, all living emotions, and just says, “Show me your data.” And that data, hard empirical data, has to be provided within a logical framework that proves cause and effect. Mark has done none of that. He has not proven the temperatures are higher than in the past. He has not shown that the carbon dioxide that man produces drives temperature. He has not shown that higher temperatures are dangerous to humans. Now, he’s then talked about carbon dioxide levels. In the earth’s past, fairly recent past by earth standards, carbon dioxide levels were 130 times higher than today. Carbon dioxide levels today are closer to the limit of 0.015% in the atmosphere where plants shut down. We need far more carbon dioxide, not less.

One minute. One minute, Malcolm.

Now, I’m the only person in the world from a Congress or a Parliament who has cross-examined the government science agency. I’ve cross-examined CSIRO over a period of five years. They have admitted to me that they have never said that carbon dioxide from human activity is a danger. Never. They have failed to show me, in the last 10,000 years, anything unprecedented in climate. Not just temperatures, anything at all, rainfall, snowfall, etc, nothing at all. They have failed to show me

30 seconds. any statistically significant change in climate. None that all. The chief scientist, after I questioned him, broke down and said to me, he is not a climate scientist, and he doesn’t understand it. Yet, that man was around the country spreading this misrepresentation of carbon dioxide and climate.

10.

No one anywhere has identified any quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity and climate. And thus, there is no basis for policy whatsoever.

All right. Well done. Malcolm. That’s your rebuttal. How you feeling Mark, by the way? You feeling okay? What was that?

Bored.

Bored!

I’ve heard it all before.

Oh really? Okay.

So start the clock.

Hang on there. I’ve just got to re set it. Give me two seconds. Here we go. All right, you’re ready, boss? And again, you’ll have two minutes to state your rebuttal and off we go. By the way, gentlemen, I won’t be making a decision on who wins this. My listeners will. Both on air and online. So we’ll put it up a little later for those who aren’t listening live. They can listen back to it, etc. We’ll leave it up for a while. Malcolm, if you wouldn’t mind, perhaps share it as well. And we’ll get some feedback from your followers. Mark, off you go.

Okay. Now what I was getting at there is all those processes took millions and millions of years to happen.

Yeah.

Now what we’re doing now, we’re clearing land the size of the United Kingdom, every year. We’ve got this corrupt fool in Brazil that’s cleared a fifth of the Amazon jungle, which pumps out oxygen and absorbs carbon dioxide. Now in 1857, a scientist named Eunice Newton Foote, a lady scientist, she couldn’t understand why when the carbon dioxide was in… Looking at the earth’s history, everything began to heat up. So she did an experiment. She put a sealed jar of oxygen, a jar of, I think it was hydrogen or helium, I can’t remember what it was, and a jar of carbon dioxide and put them in the sun. And she noticed when she took measurements, the carbon dioxide absorbed, and attracted, and retained the heat, more than the other gases in the atmosphere. They were three sealed jars.

One minute.

And then years gone by. In the late ’70s, the Nixon government, they started making warnings about climate change caused by carbon dioxide. All the insurance companies in the US all got together and said, “We’re going to have to do something about this. It’s going to cost us a heap.” Now, the track were going on now, we’re clearing so much land, and we’re cutting down all the trees, it’s turning into heat sinks. I noticed that Rob Stokes this morning, announced a thing where no more houses with black roofs ’cause the cities are taking the heat sinks.

30.

If you look at new housing develops now, they’re hot because there’s no trees, all got black roofs, and because we’re pumping out so much carbon dioxide now that it’s getting hotter and hotter. Systems are starting to collapse all around the world now. And if you take any notice or if you care, we need nature.

10.

Nature doesn’t need us. We need nature. And the thing is all these right wing gits all around the place say, “Oh, so what, who cares? It’s not our problem.” I heard some fool yesterday on the radio say, “Who cares what happens in 30 years.”

All right. That’s it. Mark, all right. Well done. Well done to both you gentlemen. Any questions between each other, let’s be respectful. You had a question of Malcolm just before, Mark. You can ask it now.

Do you recycle, Malcolm?

Yeah, I recycle.

Well, hello. That’s what the earth’s atmosphere does. We have forests to recycle carbon dioxide and turn it back into oxygen.

That’s right, and-

Yay!

Nature alone produces 32 times, every year, 32 times the amount of carbon dioxide than in the entire human production around the planet. And whats more, Data shows that the-

Hang on.

Human production cannot-

We’re burning so much-

And does not change the-

fossil fuel we’re changing-

Level of carbon dioxide-

The balance.

In the atmosphere.

Okay. I think you spoke over each other. Malcolm, just again.

Again what?

Just repeat what you were saying ’cause Mark, I think, spoke over you. We couldn’t hear you properly.

I believe in recycling and-

Yeah.

Nature itself recycles through the carbon cycle, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon is essential to all life in this planet. Every cell in Mark’s body contains carbon. Carbon dioxide is essential for life on this planet. It and water vapour are essential for life. All forms of life on this planet. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is a trace gas at 0.04% of earth’s atmosphere. It has no physical effect on temperatures at all.

All right, Mark?

Air, and also oxygen, blankets out the heat that’s being bombarded into the planet. We’re just changing the balance so much. These people just don’t get it. I just can’t believe people can be so thick as a society.

Hang on, lets be nice.

We need more carbon dioxide.

Let’s be respectful. It’s not about being thick. We’re talking ideology, we’re talking science, we’re talking-

All right.

It’s an important debate because it’s effectively divided our-

I’ll finish up with this.

Yeah?

I’ll finish up with this. Remember the smoking debate. They used to trot out all these people with white coats and clipboards saying “Oh, it’s not smoking. Two twins, one smoked and the other one didn’t. The one that smoked didn’t die, but the other one that died had cancer, so explain that.” They try and confuse you with figures. That’s what it is. But we’re changing the balance. And as I said before, all these things happened over millions of years, not the rate we’re doing. Not 200 years-

Yeah.

Millions of years.

All right, Malcolm?

Yeah, sure. Marcus, the use of any label like thick indicates that Mark-

Yeah.

Hasn’t got an argument that he can put together to counter the data.

Well, I think he did put an argument together, but.

The second thing, Marcus, is that raising smoking, which has got nothing to do with this. just shows that he hasn’t got an argument. Temperatures today are cooler than the 1880s and 1890s, when they were warmer 140 years ago. The longest temperature trend in the last 160 years was from the 1930s to 1976 when temperatures cooled. Since 1995, for 26 years, that’s more than a quarter of a century, temperatures have been flat yet China, India, America, Brazil, Russia are producing record quantities of carbon dioxide. When you consider nature’s El Nino cycles, there has been no warming trend at all for 26 years. And that conclusion is confirmed in NASA satellite temperature data.

All right, Mark? There is nothing unusual happening.

Mark?

Look at the extreme weather events that we’re getting now. As we talk, did you know last week in Canada, a place called Merit City, they had to evacuate 7,000 people because of the floods. Do you know in India last week they evacuated 200,000 people because the floods? This is what’s happening here. All these extreme weather events, and these people keep living in denial.

So Malcolm, Mark is suggesting climate changes has led into catastrophic floods, and we look here in Australia at the fires. Are you suggesting, Malcolm, that climate change has nothing to do with these severe climb of the severe environmental challenges faced by flood, fire, and?

Mark himself has failed to provide the evidence.

But there is evidence there.

Hang on, Marcus, I’m answering your question. The area of land burned-

Yeah. In the 2019 fires was much, much smaller than in the past. Even in the 1970s and much smaller than a hundred years ago. Much, much smaller. That’s the first point. The second point is that Antarctica has just had the record coldest six month period in its records, ever, ever.

Yeah.

And you can’t just go off… You notice, I don’t raise things like that, because that is weather. And the same with Canada having floods, we’ve always had floods. And if you look at the records from the Bureau of Meteorology, and you hear it on the news every night, oh, this is the heaviest flooding since in the last 50 years, what happened 51 years ago?

All right.

It was greater.

30 seconds each, just to finish. Mark, you first.

The weather events are getting more extreme because the oceans… I’ll just tell you. Okay, we’re in Australia. This is what’s happening. Up in Queensland they’ve cleared so much land the fertilizer’s washing into the water, feeding the Fido plankton. Fido meaning floating, plankton meaning plant life. That’s feeding the crown-of-thorns starfish. They’re munching their way through the barrier reef. Up in the gulf you’ve got hundreds of kilometres of the, what do you call them, mangroves have died off because it’s so hot. You’ve got Leeuwin Current floating in the coast of Western Australia was five degrees warmer-

All right.

than what it usually was. Five degrees!

Malcolm, last 30 seconds please.

Mark has failed to provide any evidence. Look, before we can provide any policy, you need to be able to quantify the impact of carbon dioxide from human activity on climate. No one anywhere in the world has done that. No one anywhere has quantified any effect of carbon dioxide from human activity on climate. And thus, there is no basis for policy. Mark is just clutching at straws. Crown-of-thorn starfish come and go in cycles. And we’ve known that for decades and decades and decades.

All right.

We need to respect nature, not vilify nature.

Gentleman, thank you both. This has been very enlightening. Very interesting. I hope the people listening at home, and those that listen back to the podcast online, enjoy it. Thank you, Mark, and both of you for being a really good sport. I think Mark deserves kudos for taking you on, Malcolm considering others, including federal members of parliament, have refused to do so. So I think kudos to him.

I agree. I agree. Kudos to Mark. But one of the sad things is that Mark has failed to provide the evidence. What we need, Marcus-

All right.

Is to understand-

Yes.

That you need to provide the empirical data, proving the link between the human carbon dioxide and climate variability.

All right, guys.

No one has done that anywhere in the world.

All right, I have to go. We’ve got the news coming up. Thank you, gentlemen, both for your time. That’s the great climate debate.

/18 Comments/by

COP26 a Cop Out

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Well it’s the same old story with Glasgow. Billionaires are going to fly their fuel guzzling private jets to a lavish party to declare you’re not allowed to run your two stroke motor. It’s all a scam designed to transfer your money to their pockets.

Transcript

[Marcus Paul]

One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts joins us every Thursday. Good day, Malcolm.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Good morning, Marcus, how are you?

[Marcus Paul]

All right, thank you. I think we know who’s behind, perhaps, some of the, I’m gonna word this very carefully. Recoveries, if you like, in the expense of Australia spending time at the COP26. I’ve been sent a whole stack of photos of Santos billboards. I mean, I don’t get it. Why is Santos, a fossil fuel company, being promoted by the Australian government at COP26? It’s outrageous.

[Malcolm Roberts]

I’ve got a deeper question for you.

[Marcus Paul]

No, no, hang on. Can you answer that though? I just–

[Malcolm Roberts]

I don’t know, Marcus. I honestly don’t know.

[Marcus Paul]

Can you ask next time you’re in the–

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yeah.

[Marcus Paul]

Find out for me because I just think it’s ridiculous.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Well, yeah, but what’s even more ridiculous is there’s no resolution at Glasgow, which doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s as I thought it would be because the biggest hydrocarbon users and the biggest producers of carbon dioxide in the world are either not there or telling Joe Biden and Co. to stick it. In fact, Joe Biden’s own country and his own party, the Democrats in America are laughing at him and saying, we are not signing this mate, go away. That’s the state of West Virginia. Entirely democratic state. Powerfully democratic state saying, go to hell Joe. And so we’ve got China not turning up. We’ve got India not turning up, and India saying they won’t do anything until 2070. We’ve got Brazil, Russia, South Korea, the largest producers of carbon dioxide in the world saying, go to hell. Now, well, you got to ask that question, Marcus. I know you’re a lefty, but you gotta ask the question. Why no resolution? I’ll tell you why. There is no data underpinning this. It is a scam. There is no objectivity. If there was data, Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison would all say, here it is. Go and do something about it. And everyone would say, God, he’s got a good question. Let’s go and do it. Now listen. China is the world’s biggest producer of carbon dioxide. It’s saying, go away. We’re not gonna wreck our economy for this rubbish. There’s no science behind it. France is saying Australia, you must do something. You must save the planet. You must fulfil your responsibility. France is powered by nuclear energy. It is not gonna have anything to lose. This is going to destroy our country because the Paris agreement, there was no agreement. It was a scam and the countries could not resolve anything. And what they agreed on was to go away and come back with your own commitments. We came back with a commitment under Malcolm Turnbull to destroy our economy. China said, go to hell. America pulled out of it under Trump. What we’ve got is a massive scam here. And by the way, have you still not found anyone to debate me?

[Marcus Paul]

Hang on, hang on. Before I get to that–

[Malcolm Roberts]

I’m still waiting.

[Marcus Paul]

I know. You say Glasgow has been a fizzer with no deal. It showcases the hypocrisy, deceit, theft and government’s lack of integrity and accountability on this. You talk again that no one has the evidence and all the rest of it. And maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s true. But again, I come back to my question. What are Santos doing there on billboards?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Well, there are many big question need to be asked about this. You can ask that question about Santos, and I’ll be happy to ask that question. It’s Santos looking after it’s own interests, but what about the people putting up lies about climate and costing the human race to pay for this rubbish? It’s a massive fraud to take money off the people. Look, you’ve got billionaires screaming in on their private jets. We’ve got 25,000 people jetting in from all over the world.

[Marcus Paul]

255 private planes, Malcolm. 250 private jet airlines.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Well, I read the figures were 400 at the damn thing.

[Marcus Paul]

Well, there you go, even more.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yeah, and so what we’ve got is no scientific evidence. We’ve got huge costs. No impact whatsoever from any agreement that Australia will sign. We’ve got other people laughing at us. We’ve got the major producers of carbon dioxide, China, South Korea, Russia, Brazil, India, doing nothing and the poor yet again, will pay the price for the rich to get richer. We’ve got Malcolm Turnbull. Tim Flannery, who’s the clown climate scientist. We’ve got Tim Flannery, and we’ve got the millionaires like Twiggy Forrest jetting in there because Twiggy Forrest and other billionaires are the ones making money or looking to make money out of this. And we will be paying for it. The average bloke in this country will be paying for it. And the sheer hypocrisy, the sheer hypocrisy of what’s going on, and people are starting to wake up. It is absolutely disgraceful.

[Marcus Paul]

All right, as well as stealing farmers’ property rights, government climate policies, you say have destroyed the electricity sector taking us from the world’s cheapest to the most expensive. It’s gutted manufacturing and added, as you and I have mentioned many times, $1,300 per year to average households’ electricity bills.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Yes, but you know there’s a been a very good development. Last year in 2020 in August, I invited 19 politicians who have been calling for cuts to carbon dioxide from human activity in Australia, prominent politicians, all federal. I asked them for their evidence. Not one provided me with any evidence, not one. Four replied. One of them thought he presented the science. I ripped it to shreds. That was Trent Zimmerman. Ripped it to shreds. He did not come back. Morison, Littleproud. And Karen Andrews replied with nonsense, absolute nonsense. And that is just not acceptable. That justifies the fact that there’s no evidence. Now, but there is some hope. I also invited 10 people to provide me with the evidence, and they came back and they said, there has never been presented any such evidence to them in parliament or to their parties. And I’ll read out the names of these people because they have shown integrity and they are showing courage. Lew O’Brien, National Party. Craig Kelly, then a liberal, now no longer a liberal. Kevin Andrews, a liberal. Senator Eric Abetz, a liberal. George Christensen, a National. Senator Connie Fierravanti-Wells, from your state, New South Wales, a strong liberal. Bob Katter, Katter Australia Party. Senator Pauline Hanson. Senator Gerard Rennick, a liberal. I also got one Labor MP, a Senator actually, who promised to send me the article, send me his response saying that he’s never been given any evidence, but he withdrew at the last minute because I’m guessing he was afraid of the backlash. What we’ve got is we’ve got these senators, these MPs, willing to state in public that they have never, ever been given any evidence from their party nor from the parliament. And I just remind you too, that John Howard, who brought in, disgusting government, brought in these policies that are now gutting our country, stole farmer’s property rights, went around the constitution to do it and he has admitted six years after he got the boot from Bennelong and the prime ministership, he admitted that on the topic of climate science, he is agnostic. In other words, he’s got no science. All of this was started by the John Howard government. And that is what they did not have the science, they’ve admitted it. The father of the Senate, Ian McDonald at the time in 2016, stood up in December, 2016, looked across the chamber at me and said, I don’t always agree with Senator Roberts, but I have to give him the credit for starting the debate on climate science that this parliament has never had. Marcus, there is no evidence for any of this crap. None of what-so-ever.

[Marcus Paul]

Well, why then Malcolm, is nobody seemingly listening to you and those aforementioned politicians that you’ve just summarised for us?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Because parliaments are no longer accountable to the people. Parliaments serve the parties. Parliament serve the party donors. And we have got to get back to the parliament serving the country, holding parliaments accountable. We have a bunch of sheep in parliament. We have gutless, ignorant, insecure, dishonest people representing the country. That’s the bottom line. We have got to change parliament, get the minor parties into parliament, get some independents in the parliament and hold the major parties accountable. We have got to change parliament. People have got to stop voting for the same old donkeys and the labor, liberal, greens, national parties.

[Marcus Paul]

All right. Just before I let you go, we know that diplomacy is important on a global scale for a whole range of reasons. Just taking the climate debate out of it, but you know, the defence. What do you make of the current spat between Australia and France?

[Malcolm Roberts]

Again, Marcus, it’s not based on evidence. It’s not based on solid data. It’s just been a game. Greg Sheridan, who I’ve got to some respect for who writes in the Australian. I know it’s News Corp and you don’t go with the News Corp.

[Marcus Paul]

Malcolm.

[Malcolm Roberts]

So do I, so do I, mate. I agree with you, but Greg Sheridan writes occasionally good articles.

[Marcus Paul]

Don’t be like that. Don’t be like that. When you say I don’t go with News Corp, I just think they’re a little bias, that’s all. I mean–

[Malcolm Roberts]

Well, yeah, they are in some ways. Every paper has it’s bias.

[Marcus Paul]

But we all are. That’s right.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And anyway, Greg Sheridan points out that this submarine issue goes from one government to the next. It’s never based on sound data. It’s just an emotional ploy to get people in to think that we’re doing the right thing for security. And the government, and he said he bets that they will never ever build a submarine in this country. He bets that there’ll never be a proper submarine fleet that we can call our own. He bets that that’ll just be passed from one government to the next. And the reason that happens is that there’s no data driving decisions. Decisions in parliament are opinion-based, ideologically based rather than databased. We are not in parliament in this country under labor, liberal, nationals and greens. People are making decisions based on ideology, emotions, grabbing headlines, getting votes rather than what the people need. We have got to change parliament.

[Marcus Paul]

Thank you, Malcolm. Appreciate it.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thanks mate.

[Marcus Paul]

Have a good day, there he is. One Nations, Senator Malcolm, Robert.

/4 Comments/by

No plan to remove toxic solar panels

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Solar panels have a limited shelf life before they lose efficiency and don’t generate enough electricity. When that shelf life is reached, the panels need to be removed and disposed of.

Unfortunately solar panels are full of highly toxic chemicals like lead, lithium and cadmium which are hard to dispose.

Despite knowing about this looming problem for decades, the government has no plan and no budget to clean up the millions of toxic solar panels across the country.

Transcript

Chair, and thank you for appearing today. In terms of clean energy technology development, what is the proposed solution from the government to safely dispose of the heavy metal component of degraded solar cells?

Senator, there is some work underway through ARENA to look at end-of-life issues for solar cells, but to give you a specific answer right now, I’d have to take that on notice.

Okay, thank you, so some work is underway with ARENA, end-of-life. How expensive, I guess you probably can’t answer this question. How expensive will this process be and what amount had been budgeted for this task?

Yeah, Senator, I don’t think we have the right answers for those questions, and certainly from a Commonwealth perspective, there isn’t a budget allocated to that activity.

Who will be responsible for implementing this policy once it’s developed.

So I think that there’s waste disposal issues. So that’ll be governed more by state legislation than Commonwealth legislation.

So we’ll have some Commonwealth legislation hybrid?

No, Senator, I’m saying that

I’m just trying to clarify.

it’s more a state issue.

Okay, it’s a state issue. So is it likely to be privatised or would it be the responsibility of the individual solar complexes owners?

Look, I really don’t think we have answers to those questions, Senator. I think the research that ARENA is doing will provide some light onto whether or not there are issues that need to be dealt with, and then if there are, there will be policy responses developed by the relevant level of government.

If there are issues?

Yeah, that’s right.

So we don’t know if there are issues yet?

I can’t say myself that I’m aware of how significant those issues are. So research is underway.

Senator, this issue further, we’ll take the rest of that on notice. That question…

Thank you. Will these costs be factored into the massively high government subsidies that are the only way to fudge the actual cost of solar to the community who have been duped into thinking that solar is a cheap source of electricity?

We’ll take that on notice, Senator.

Thank you. Isn’t it true that if the subsidies were removed from solar, they would not be viable because solar in reality is much more expensive than coal, which is still the cheapest form of energy apart from hydro?

On notice, Senator.

On notice? Given that we know that within 10 years or less, the Australian landscape will be littered with hundreds of thousands of dead toxic solar cells. What is the plan? You don’t know the plan yet, ARENA?

We’d take that on notice to do that properly for you, Senator.

Okay, thank you. Is it the government’s intention to create a new industry of solar cell disposal?

Same again?

Senator, we’ll take that on notice

Okay. When will this government, Minister, when will this government stop pandering to the greens on this issue when it works out against Australians who now are forced to pay the most expensive electricity bills in the Western world because of the government subsidies paid for solar and wind generation?

Well, I don’t accept the premise of your question, Senator Roberts. I mean, if you look at the record under this government when it comes to energy prices, for instance, we saw quarter on quarter, month on month energy reductions in costs in energy prices. So we take that

Does that have anything to do with COVID?

We take that very seriously. No, that predates COVID, like, we can go to some of the detail of that if you’d like, but we have had a very strong focus on reducing emissions. That’s why we don’t support things like, sorry, on reducing prices and reducing emissions at the same time. And that’s why we don’t support things like carbon taxes. We have pursued approaches that support reliability, ensure, yes, renewables are very important part of the mix. I know that there will be disagreement between the government and yourself, Minister Roberts, Senator Roberts, on that, but if you look at where renewable energy is affordable, of course, that’s a great part of the energy mix. It’s doing an environmental job and it’s also contributing to the overall price points, but we know that there are challenges with that. That’s why you need backup. That’s why you need, for instance, gas-fired power as backup to renewables. And so the mix of energy is important. We take that very seriously, but no I certainly don’t accept the premise of your question.

Do you think, Minister, it’s responsible for a government to embark on a policies as they did with the Howard Anderson Government in 1996 to reintroduce the renewable energy target, to drive renewables, and yet had no plan for how we would deal with the legacies of these solar panels and wind turbines?

Well, look, it’s probably difficult for me to comment.

This is now, excuse me, this is now 25 years.

But it’s probably difficult for me to comment on sort of the policy process in, you know, 1996 and sort of in that government. So it’s, I probably can’t add too much…

Well given that we are now aware of this issue, and we’ve been saying this for years now, given that we’re now aware of this issue, let’s forget 1996, and let’s look at what your government is doing with regard to this issue now. It’s right on us. We’re gonna have these toxic panels all over the country.

Well, look, as Ms. Evans has said, I think some of those questions have been taken on notice, and, obviously, we will provide you with some further detail if we can.

Thank you, Chair.

Okay, thanks Senator Roberts.

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The true cost of shoddy Governance

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Governments have been making policy that is completely out of touch with reality or data for decades. It’s all based on political whims or looking good, not the facts or data. As a result, our country is broken.

We have to return to policy based on tested data, not Labor or Liberal’s feelings on the day.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I will discuss the cost of shoddy science that is crippling people, families, communities and our nation. One Nation has repeatedly called for and continues to call for an independent office of scientific integrity and quality assurance to assess the science claimed to be underpinning government policy and decisions. We want objective, independent scientific scrutiny that is protected from politicisation. Science is a not a label; it is hard, verifiable, reliable data within a framework that proves cause and effect logically. It is every senator’s responsibility to ensure that she or he makes decisions using such data.

I’ll give you some examples of the cost of shoddy science that has not been scrutinised. Climate policies and renewable subsidies cost Australian households via electricity costs $13 billion per year, every year. That’s $1,300 per household per year needlessly wasted. The median income in this country is $49,000. After tax, that’s around $34,000 or maybe a little bit higher. How can someone on $34,000 after tax afford $1,300 flushed down the toilet, for nothing? The additional costs of climate policies on our power bills is a staggering 39 per cent, not the 6½ per cent that the government claims. Renewables distort the low cost of coal based power and more than double the wholesale electricity price from coal’s $45.50 per kilowatt hour to $92.50. China and India use our coal to sell electricity at 8c a kilowatt hour, while we burn the same coal without transporting it thousands of kilometres and the price of electricity from the coal is three times as much at 25c an hour.

All Australians have the right to benefit from our rich natural resources. The true cost of electricity in this country would be $13 billion per year less if cheap, affordable, reliable coal production was not lumbered with policies that distort the market. We commissioned independent expert and respected economist Dr Alan Moran to calculate those figures, and he used the government’s own data. So it can’t be sensibly refuted. The government stopped presenting it in consolidated form to hide what government policy is doing to everyday Australians in our nation.

Every subsidised green energy job or so-called renewable job, from renewable or unreliable power, such as wind and solar, costs 2.2 jobs lost in the real economy. Parasitic unreliables are killing their host, the people of Australia and the people of Queensland.

We can go further, beyond raw data on energy costs, to look at property rights. Property rights have been stolen in this country in the name of the Kyoto Protocol. John Howard’s Howard-Anderson government started it with Rob Borbidge’s National Party government in Queensland, followed quickly by Peter Beattie’s government and every government since, with the exception of Campbell Newman, who failed to repeal it. Property rights have been stolen with no compensation. That is fundamentally wrong. We see it in water policy, with corruption in the Murray-Darling Basin when it comes to water trading. We see the stealing of water rights, all based on shoddy science. The whole Murray-Darling Basin Plan is based on shoddy science—political science. Instead of having science based policy, we now have policy based science, and both sides of this parliament are responsible.

Senator Carr, who I have a lot of regard for in many ways, raised COVID. We have not been given the scientific data on COVID. We’ve been given models. The scientific data which I got from the Chief Medical Officer points to a completely different picture and to completely different management. COVID is being mismanaged in the name of science. It is wrong. By the way, the costs of all of those examples I’ve given are not in the billions but in the tens or hundreds of billions, and the impact on our country’s economy is in the trillions, with the lost opportunity and the lack of competitiveness.

COVID exposed to us that our country has lost its economic independence. We now depend on other countries for our survival—for basics. We’ve lost our manufacturing sector because of shoddy governance from the Labor, Liberal and National parties over almost eight decades, since 1944. In the last 18 months, we’ve seen the Liberals, Labor and the Nationals squabbling at state and federal level, because there is no science being used to drive the plan. There’s no plan for COVID management. Each state is lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis, and the federal government is bypassing the Constitution and conditioning them to suck on the federal tit. That’s what’s going on.

Let’s have a look at the science. I have held CSIRO accountable at three presentations from them, plus Senate estimates. Firstly, the CSIRO has admitted under my cross-examination that the CSIRO has never said that carbon dioxide from human activity is a danger—never. We asked them: ‘Who has said it? Politicians told us you said it.’ They said, ‘You’d have to ask the politicians.’ Secondly, CSIRO has admitted that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented. I’ll say that again—not unprecedented. They’ve happened before in recent times without our burning of hydrocarbon fuels.

Thirdly, the CSIRO then fell back on one thing—one paper, after almost 50 years of research, that said that the rate of warming is now increasing. That too was falsified by the author of that paper. It was falsified and contradicted by other references which the CSIRO had to then give us. There is no evidence for the CSIRO’s sole claim that the rate of temperature rise is unprecedented. Its own papers that it cites do not show that. The CSIRO then relied upon unvalidated computer models that were already proven to be giving erroneous projections. That’s what the UN IPCC relies on. They’ve already been proven wrong many times.

The clincher is that, to have policy based upon science, you would need to quantify the amount of impact on climate variables such as weather: rainfall; storm activity, severity and frequency; and drought. You’d need to be able to quantify the impact on that of carbon dioxide from human activity. The CSIRO has never quantified any specific impact on climate, or any climate variable, from human carbon dioxide.

With us, the CSIRO has repeatedly relied on discredited and poor-quality papers on temperature and carbon dioxide. It gave us one of each, and then, when we tore them to shreds, they gave us more. We tore them to shreds. It has never given us any good-quality scientific papers. That’s their science. The CSIRO revealed little understanding of the papers they cited as evidence. That’s our scientific body in this country—they could not show understanding of the papers that they cited.

The CSIRO admits it has never done due diligence on reports and data that it cites as evidence. It just accepts peer review. What a lot of rubbish that is! That has been shown in peer-reviewed articles to be rubbish. The CSIRO allows politicians to misrepresent it without correction. It doesn’t stand up—it doesn’t have any backbone. The CSIRO has misled parliament. Independent international scientists have verified our conclusions on the CSIRO science, and they’re stunned—people like John Christy, Nir Shaviv, Nils Morner, David Legates, Ian Plimer and Will Happer. There is no climate emergency—none at all. Everything is normal. It’s completely cyclical weather.

Now I’ll move to the UK’s Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, which has turned into a propaganda outfit and a mouthpiece and cheer squad for global policies. Politics has captured it and turned it into a massive bureaucracy that writes legislation rather than checks it. POST, as it’s called, comprises people, as Senator Carr said, ‘consistent with parliamentary composition’. That tells us straight away that it’s not independent. Instead of a body to drive legislation we want a body to vet it. Senator Carr mentioned the Office of the Chief Scientist. I asked the Chief Scientist for a presentation on his evidence of climate change caused by human carbon dioxide. After 20 minutes of rubbish we asked him questions and he looked at us and said that he’s not a climate scientist and he doesn’t understand it. Yet we have policies around this country based upon Dr Finkel’s advice. Some of those policies that I mentioned are based on his advice.

We’ve had activists, such as Tim Flannery, David Karoly, Will Steffen, Ross Garnaut, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Matthew England, Kurt Lambeck, Andy Pitman and Lesley Hughes, being paraded and paid by the government—both Liberal and Labor—and yet they’re nothing more than academic activists. None have provided any empirical scientific evidence in a logical framework proving cause and effect. That’s what has been paraded around this parliament as science for decades now. It’s rubbish. That’s why One Nation opposes this motion. It is wasting committee resources to send them off on a goose chase to adopt something like the UK’s Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.

We invite Senator Carr to join us in legislating for an independent body of scientists to scrutinise government policy and decisions. Let the government put up the science upon which its policies are based and let the independent body scrutinise it. That requires a few things. First of all, it needs a team funded and set up to oppose the government’s position, and we’ll let them both go at it. Science, fundamentally, is about data and debate. We need the government to put up its science and let a team tear it apart—and be funded to tear it apart. Once that happens, and the science is dismissed, that will save the country billions of dollars. If it withstands the scrutiny, that’s good—we’ll know we’ve got a really solid scientific case. Another way is to have a transparency portal. Put the science out there and let anybody in the public domain tear it apart. If someone finds a chink, fix it. True scientists are not about protecting their egos; they’re about being open to the advancement of humanity. They welcome their own science being torn apart.

We need an independent view. The type of information, as the motion discusses, is simple. All we need is empirical scientific evidence in a framework proving cause and effect. We then need independent scrutiny, and I’ve given you two examples. That will replace policies—as Senator Carr has discussed, and I agree with him—based on ideology, headline-seeking, prejudice, opinions, looking after vested interests and looking after donors. This is what’s driving this country, and the people are paying for it. They’re paying for it through the neck, and we’re destroying our country. We need the ‘claimed’ science to be scrutinised and verified or rejected.

What a shameful, disgraceful incident we saw in this parliament just after midday today. We saw Senator Wong, Senator Watt and Senator Waters engaging in a screaming match. Not once did anyone raise empirical scientific evidence. This is day 701 since I asked the chief proponent of this climate change nonsense in the parliament to be accountable for her data. I asked Senator Waters. I challenged her 701 days ago—almost two years ago. I challenged her 11 years ago. She has never agreed to debate me. She refuses to debate me. She refuses to put up the scientific evidence. She refuses to discuss the corruption of climate science. Yet she espouses policies that will gut this country. Also, we’ve seen Senator Wong quoting a report from the IPCC. That’s not a report from scientists; that’s a report from political activists. She talks about what we are told—insert the catastrophe—will happen in the future. That’s not science. What we need is an honest debate. We need an honest debate to reveal the pure science and to hold people accountable in the parliament. We will not be supporting this motion because it will encourage politicisation.

/3 Comments/by

Do you feel like government spends your money well?

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There have been massive increases in debt in the last 12 months, without the necessary objective data to underpin them. That shows, yet again, poor governance of our country. When you take in government charges, rates, levies and fees as well 68% of someone’s average income is taken in tax. That’s working from Monday to mid-morning Thursday to pay for government.

Transcript

Senator Siewert’s motion is that the Senate notes that the Morrison government’s 2021-22 budget left people on low incomes behind. I would go further. This budget leaves the whole country behind, and that means it leaves everyone behind. There have been massive increases in debt in the last 12 months, without the necessary objective data to underpin them. That shows, yet again, poor governance of our country. In Senate estimates, I discussed with the chief medical officer and the secretary of the health department the seven essential components of a plan for managing a virus. The federal government is addressing one; the state governments are addressing another—that’s it—and they have both been addressed poorly.

I want to discuss the productive capacity because that’s what determines the wealth and the economic security, and, indeed, sometimes the defence security of our nation in the future. The productive capacity of our country has been declining considerably since 1944 and, in fact, since 1923, if we want to get into basics—but that’s for another day. Let’s look at the most important part of productive capacity—the human asset, our people. Look at education, because it’s the future leaders of this country who will determine the future productive capacity, as well as us determining that capacity today. We have declining scores in education. Reading and writing, mathematics and science—declining. By world standards, we are falling well behind in the core aspects of education but we devote plenty of resources, plenty of time, plenty of energy to teaching kids—misleading kids—about gender fluidity, critical race theory, non-gender language and a national curriculum that the government forks out money for yet cannot control. That’s what has been told to us by the federal government.

We need charter schools. We need parents to have more say in the running of their schools, and principals to have more say in the running of their schools; parents to control what values are passed on; and parents to decide whether or not their children will be taught about gender fluidity. I want to compliment Mark Latham in the New South Wales parliament and my colleague Senator Pauline Hanson for the bills they are introducing and evaluating right now to restore values and common sense to education. I note that Singapore, Japan, and Korea have really moved ahead in recent years, as has Taiwan. They all have solid basic education.

What’s happened to apprenticeships in this country? Senator Lines moved a motion today with regard to apprenticeships sadly lacking in WA. Senator Hanson has proudly introduced an apprenticeship scheme that the government has taken and refurbished and expanded, such is the success of her suggestion on apprenticeships. What has happened to universities? They followed our primary schools and high schools in becoming more woke and driven by anything but education. As for university education, it is now just pushing an ideology. Our TAFE systems have fallen into disrepair; our trades qualifications are falling into disrepair.

Let’s move on then to the workplace. The Fair Work Act is an abomination. It is about that thick in pages printed. It destroys the employer-employee relationship, which is essential for productive capacity. It is difficult for anyone, an employee or a small businesses employer who doesn’t have access to lawyers and consultants and HR practitioners to work their way through that. How can they possibly be held accountable for that relationship when they can’t even understand it and never will understand it, not because of lack of intelligence but because of lack of time and surely being overwhelmed? Again, just like education, this is poor governance to get into this state.

Then we go to energy—arguably the most critical in material resources because energy has determined the competitiveness of every country. Under President Trump America reversed the decline in its competitiveness because it reversed its increase of energy prices and it started to decrease its energy prices again. America became more competitive against its competitors and blossomed because of that. President Trump created more jobs than any president in history because of that and because he cut away regulations.

This government and its predecessors have fiddled the Renewable Energy Target, destroying our baseload coal-fired power stations, our grid. The network costs are destroying our grid, making it unaffordable. Retail sectors of electricity are just a fabrication. The national electricity market is now a national electricity racket. It’s not a market at all; it’s a bureaucracy that’s interfered with and manipulated by bureaucrats looking after vested interests. Then we see privatisation. The Queensland Labor government is taking about $1½ billion every year from people who use electricity—businesses, small businesses and families—and that is now a tax. We have taxes on electricity. Why is it that the Chinese can produce electricity and sell it for one-third the cost of electricity sold in this country when they use the same coal as we do? They take it thousands of kilometres, burn it and sell the coal-fired power to their consumers and we sell it for three times as much because of regulations that come out of both sides of this parliament.

Then we look at water. The Murray-Darling Basin has been gutted. Communities have been gutted. Regions have been gutted. And nothing is happening about it. Today we passed an amendment to restore compliance with the law, the Water Act of 2007, with regard to water trading. It was supported by the Labor Party but denied by the Liberals and Nationals. They don’t want to comply with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It went down to the lower house and Labor changed and sent it back here, in cahoots with the Liberals and Nationals. That will continue to destroy water allocations in our country because it will continue the corruption and the likely—I’m very confident in saying this—criminal activity going in the Murray-Darling Basin with regard to abuse of water trading.

Then we see property rights, which are fundamental to running a farm or a business. They were capriciously stolen under the Howard-Anderson government in 1996 and then progressively by Labor premiers from Queensland and New South Wales, jumping on the bandwagon to steal farmers’ property rights. Why? To comply with the United Nations Kyoto protocol of 1996—that’s why. Farmers have lost the value of their land. We see that extended in Queensland, for example, by the Queensland state government, relying on bogus claims about the reef to lock up land. We then see the federal government enacting carbon farming, where vast tracks of good farmland are laid waste, abandoned and taken over by feral animals and noxious weeds. There are costs to managing them as they spread around the country and fall on their neighbours’ properties. This is another example of poor governance. There’s a lack of infrastructure in water. The Bradfield scheme is crying out for investment.

Then we go to the most destructive system of all in our country, the Australian taxation system. In 1996 and 2010, Jim Killaly was the deputy commissioner of taxation for large companies and international matters. He said on both occasions—1996 and 2010—that 90 per cent of Australia’s large companies are foreign owned and, since 1953, have paid little or no company tax. They use our resources, people, assets, defence forces, police forces and education system and pay nothing in return and just take. The Japanese, by comparison, have in their large companies 2.5 per cent foreign owned. The American and the British figures are about 12.5 per cent. Who pays for these foreign companies to use our assets and to make money without paying company tax? The people of Australia pay for that through families paying taxes, individuals paying taxes, small businesses paying taxes and some large Australian come companies paying 30 per cent against their multinational competitors who don’t have to pay that. How can we possibly compete? Then we found out in the late 1990s and early 2000s—and I’ve asked the Parliamentary Library to update this figure—that a person on an average income in this country pays 68 per cent of their income to government. Housing is not our largest expenditure in life; government is, through taxes, rates, fees, levies, chargers, supercharges and special charges. Joe Hockey admitted when he was Treasurer that 50 per cent of a person’s income is taken in tax. He said people work from January through to the end of June for government and then they keep what’s left. The actual figure, when you take in government charges, rates, levies and fees as well, is 68 per cent, which means that someone on the average income is working from Monday to mid-morning Thursday to pay for government.

Then they have what’s left, the two-thirds of Thursday and Friday, to pay for their entire life: their retirement, their education, their food, their shelter, their car, their transport, their entertainment. That is not fair, and it shows poor governance. I haven’t got time now to talk about attempts to reform taxation, but both parties, both the tired old parties, have shown a reluctance to invest energy and political will and sheer guts in tackling—and they lack the integrity to tackle—comprehensive tax reform.

I mentioned infrastructure a minute ago. What about projects like the Richmond agricultural project? What about the irrigation project up in Hughenden? What about things like Iron Boomerang, which would transform our country and make it the most cost-effective and largest producer of steel, and give us enormous security for manufacturing and for our defence? Then we have things that tap into that Iron Boomerang—things like an inland rail that’s being destroyed by the Liberal-National government, an inland rail that is sucking up resources and coming up with something that will be far worse than the existing installations, especially when we consider the blowout in the cost. Again, it’s a lack of data, a lack of sound planning. An inland rail and a proper route through to Gladstone would be part, then, of a proper national rail circuit.

Madam Deputy President, I submit to you these points that show and prove that the government here has not only left the poor behind, as Senator Siewert points out; the government has put additional burdens on the poor, the government has put a regressive tax on the poor in terms of energy prices. Energy prices are increasing alarmingly, and the poor have to pay a higher and higher and higher proportion of their income on a fundamental, which is energy. And then the poor pay for it because they lose their jobs when our manufacturing jobs and some of our agricultural and agricultural processing jobs are exported to China, which uses our raw materials—gas and coal—to produce electricity far more cheaply than we sell it for in our own country. So we’re losing out entirely and we lose out in the diminishing of our defence security.

So I certainly agree with Senator Siewert that the Morrison government’s 2021-22 budget has left people on low incomes behind. It has left people right across the country behind. It has left Australia behind.

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China and the ABC – Sky News with Paul Murray

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I talked to Paul Murray about restoring manufacturing in Australia so we can defend ourselves against China and how the ABC’s bias has become palpable.

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Clean Energy Finance Corporation is going backwards – Senate Estimates

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The CEFC holds $10 billion of taxpayer money to be used on wasteful green projects. They are meant to get a healthy return for splashing your cash at renewable pipe dreams, but their profit has gone down by 30% in a year.

All of this is to supposedly cut down on harmless CO2, which you and I breathe in and out all day. The fact that the CEFC exists is just another example of how green-left this apparently conservative government has gone.

Transcript

Senator Roberts.

[Senator Roberts] Thank you chair. Could you tell me what is clean energy? Just a quick preliminary question before we get into it.

Well, ideally Senator clean energy is one that is doesn’t produce emissions.

[Senator Roberts] Emissions of what?

Emissions of carbon dioxide or their equivalent is how we would, I guess broadly considered clinically. I mean, it’s not a technical term, but in the, in the general parlance.

[Senator Roberts] So, what’s dirty about carbon dioxide?

Well.

[Senator Roberts] ‘Cause you’re exhaling it right now.

Yeah. I mean, it’s omnipresent around us. I appreciate that, Senator. But what we’re about is is trying to decarbonize the Australian economy in the electricity sector and the ag sector and infrastructure and property and so on. So that’s, that’s what we’re about. And part of that is investing in renewables which are of course, clean energy.

[Senator Roberts] So there are a few leaps there we’ll, we’ll ignore the leaps. But if we look around inside this building and outside. Everything that we see in here has come from the use of energy and human progress over the last 170 years has been due entirely to the ever decreasing cost in real terms of energy except for the last 25 years, since 1996 where the costs have doubled and in fact more than doubled. So we’re reversing human progress on the basis that carbon dioxide is a dirty gas, correct?

In fact, power prices during the day in many states of Australia are extremely low today, and in some cases have been negative. So I don’t know if that is always the case.

[Senator Roberts] Wholesale prices and consumer prices, especially for families have increased dramatically in the last 25 years. So let’s get onto the clean energy finances claim. This is quote, we invest to lead the market operating with commercial rigor to address some of Australia’s toughest emissions challenges in agriculture, energy generation and storage infrastructure, property, transport and waste with $10 billion to invest on behalf of the Australian government. We work to hope that’s the people we work to deliver a positive return for taxpayers across our portfolio. So the clean energy finance corporation is normalised surplus. What some people might argue is a kin to a profit from operations. Excluding extenuating circumstances in 2019-20 was $100.5 million compared with 143.6 million the year before. Isn’t that a disappointing decline? And do you expect a recovery?

We’re very proud of our economic record, Senator and the you know, the operating surplus that we produced last year we think is, we think is a significant achievement. In fact, when you take away from that operating surplus net operating circles the cost of government funding we still produce a profit for the Australian taxpayers. So we, you know I think what we’ve done investing successfully across all those sectors that you mentioned it has been a terrific achievement.

[Senator Roberts] So what does it return? I would calculate it as about 1%.

Well, it depends how you, how you look at it. Senator we, we’ve directed by the government to try and achieve a portfolio benchmark return across across the whole portfolio. And if you look at our sort of cumulative return through to 31 March of this year our return is approximately 4.63%. So I, you know, I think that’s a that’s a very positive return.

[Senator Roberts] Okay. Secondly, the clean energy finance corporation impairment provision at 30th of June, 2020 was $121.1 million compared with 59.7 million in the previous year. So that’s a 100% increase and it represented 5.1% of loans and advances at amotised cost compared with 2.3% in 2018, 19. So it’s more than doubled.

Remember it’s a provision, senators. It’s no, it’s not a loss or right off of any of our assets. And we’re pleased to say that we have negligible losses in our portfolio across the course of the eight years that we have been, we’ve been investing. The increase is a reflection of some of the, you know, some of the challenges that we have taken into account in relation to wind and solar projects and the challenges with grid and marginal loss factors and curtailment. So to be prudent and conservative, we did increase in payment provision substantially last year. I’ll maybe get my CFO.

Senator, I might also just add that one of the factors that we were considering back in August when we were wrapping up the June financial year end was that everybody was projecting at that point that we were headed into a recession. And if you’re headed into a recession, your probability of default on loans will increase. So we prudently put extra money aside to provision for that event. Fortunately, with hindsight now we did not head into a recession. We were back on the way out and we’re, we’re experiencing growth now. So that prudent provision that stood there at that point in time was not needed because we did not suffer actual losses. That was just a provision —

[Senator Roberts] So the 5.1% includes the provision?

That was all provision. So it was purely a statistical calculation on the probability of default. If we had low electricity prices. We were headed into a recession and really the property market as well. People are looking at that and saying, we’re not quite sure what’s going to happen with valuations in property. And so we had to prudently provide for those things fortunately, not required in hindsight.

[Senator Roberts] Okay. Thank you. What are your projections for impairment over the next five years?

Over the next five years, it’s actually spelled out in the budget papers and I can give you that exact number but effectively we’re not projecting an increase dramatically in the provision. So if we look at, I’m on page 166. The budget papers, and we provide in there on about halfway down the page, write down an impairment of assets. There’s in the budget year, 45 million. Now that’s a combination of two things. There’s about 20 odd million dollars of true impairment provision that we allow for. And about 25 million that we’re providing in the event that we have to invest at suboptimal rates to provide some stability in the grid. One of the things that’s factored in here is the grid reliability fund. We expect that we will have to invest equity. In some cases that equity may be at less than market rates. So instead of a concessional charge, it ends up as an impairment charge. You write it down to the fair value. Now that’s to make sure that the grid can cope with the, the ongoing changes to the generation nature.

[Senator Roberts] So how much have you on another question, how much have you written off in terms of lost capital and foregone interest?

Over the entire life of the corporation? I think from memory it’s like, it may be as high as 800,000. We can take it on —

[Senator Roberts] No, it’s, it’s a bit immaterial in the scheme of the scale of the CFC.

It’s lifting the signal. I’m going to give the call to send it to McAlester.

Okay.

[Senator Roberts] Everything that you’re putting money into has a subsidy. It can’t stand on its own merits. Aren’t you lending money out and expecting to get it back?

We, I mean, as you know, as we’ve discussed all our capital expected capital has been returned with the expected income. And, and I’m not sure about your statement there that everything that we’ve invested in is is receiving a subsidy. You know, we’ve a very broad investor, right? From large scale projects to, as I say, in property you know, even, you know, things like the build to rent sector and venture capital and clean technologies. And so I, you know, I’m not sure why you think that all all the sectors and all the companies and projects we’ve invested in would be receiving subsidies.

Senator, I’m Simon Avery, head of government stakeholder relations might be of some assistance there under our act. And this goes to the question you asked earlier about a definition of clean energy technology. The three heads of definition are renewable energy technologies energy efficiency, technologies and low emissions technologies. And so while as you point out renewable energy technologies may have some subsidies. For example, through the renewable energy target for most of the energy efficiency technologies there’s no subsidy involved. And in fact, over the life of the CFC, I think we’ve we’ve made about $9.1 billion worth of commitments. And there would only be about $55 million worth of concessional subsidy that CFC has itself offered 55 million odd over 9.1 billion of lifetime commitments is a drop in the bucket.

[Senator Roberts] So last question chair, the energy minister, Mr. Taylor has cited publicly the Bloomberg graph on investment per capita in various countries around the world in solar and wind. And Australia has double the per capita investment of any other country. Number two country, I think is America. It’s with just over double with six times China’s investment in that, even though they make all of our solar most of our solar panels and wind turbines. So other than providing still further assistance wind and solar. How does this funding encourage private investment in Australia’s renewable energy sector when the evidence suggested that we’re already over investing and bringing bringing quite damaging consequences to us as we’ve heard?

Yeah. I mean, there’s a couple of things in there, Senator, I mean, remember of course, Australia is a world leader in rooftop solar. So, you know, they’ve kind of in excess of two gigawatts of rooftop, solar is is installed each year at the moment in this country. So that accounts for some of the, you know the per capita figures that that you cite in terms of, you know, attracting, you know the use of the private sector and why isn’t that investing well, the good thing is that that we have been creating in private sector investment over the course of, of our life at the CFC and for every dollar that we have, in fact invested we have credited in $2.40 of third party capital. So part of what we’re about is, is coming into, you know into projects, you know, supporting companies and we at the same time are trying to attract in the private sector be they Australian banks, international equity, you know large scale infrastructure funds and so on. And so we’re about bringing in the private sector and you know, not creating any more now.

[Senator Roberts] Thank you, chair.

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What do we get for the $5.1B on Snowy Hydro?

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Before the government started splashing billions of dollars on renewables, the price of energy was around $40/MWHr. That price has increased more and more since 2015.

Transcript

[Chair] Senator Roberts, you have the call.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you Chair, and thank you all for being here. What is the true costs of Snowy 2.0, including associated transmission linkages and all associated costs required to make it operational and productive?

[Paul Broad] Well, the transmission, as I’ve said many times here, is not part of 2.0. The transmission is to enable the transition to renewables. And the cost of all that transmission is in the hands of others, not in our hands. So I can’t comment on transmission. But Snowy 2.0., as I’ve just said here many times, in nominal dollars, it’s a 5.1. And then attached to that we have a contingency factor of $400 million. And we now can confirm that the environmental costs, the offsets costs are about roughly $100 million.

[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. What is the average annual saving that Snowy 2.0 will enable in the marketplace?

[Paul Broad] Sir, I don’t understand.

[Malcolm Roberts] What was the saving? The economic modelling has found that Snowy 2.0 will provide savings of market benefits of between $4.4 and $6.8 billion and reduced spot prices, leading to lower costs for consumers.

[Paul Broad] Yeah.

[Malcolm Roberts] What will be the benefit?

[Paul Broad] So, as I said, I think he said it four years ago, what it does is firm up renewables and allows it to compete. And we do so at a price point, at that time I said, some senators were here at the time, we said that we can compete with base load power. And that’s been proven to be true, even with existing Snowy. So the benefits will come is to renewables, lower prices, etc, etc, that stem from 2.0. I emphasise again, you can’t go down the renewables track without significant amounts of deep storage.

[Malcolm Roberts] So it’s an added cost to renewables.

[Paul Broad] You can’t have renewables without it.

[Malcolm Roberts] Right, so that’s an added cost to renewables.

[Paul Broad] Yep.

[Malcolm Roberts] Do the projected savings take us back to a sustained $40 per megawatt hour price, that prevailed prior to government interventions favouring renewable energy that brought the post-2015 price increases?

[Paul Broad] I can’t comment on that. I can comment that the renewal penetration is significantly pushing downward on prices. Wholesale prices are significantly down, the forward curve is down. But you gotta be able to balance that out. That’s been helped a lot by existing baseline plants being flexed up and down to keep the lights on. So I can’t comment on going back to those days. Those days, where driven by cheap baseline.

[Malcolm Roberts] Driven by cheap baseline? So that’s correct. That’s my understanding too.

[Paul Broad] Mm-hmm.

[Malcolm Roberts] So coming to the Curry Curry project, do you think that private sector participants perceive the risks of such a new plant? My understanding is that the Minister was really keen for private and private sector to take on Curry Plant or provide that what the Curry Plant will be providing. But instead that’s not happening, so the government’s jumping in. So do you think that private sector participants perceive the risk of such a new plant to be excessive, in light of government subsidies, present and planned, to intermittent wind and solar?

[Paul Broad] So EA didn’t. So they’re building. Energy Australia didn’t, so they’re building a plant tolerably. Can I just say, the other one was AGL. They’d be talking about building a plant at Tomago since, I think, 2012. And I don’t believe the – in their interest to build and enable competitors to offer up more competitive products than what they currently supply from their base load power stations. So, I suspect there are wider considerations than just gas plants for AGL. But I can’t, you know, I’m speculating.

[Malcolm Roberts] So, there are many –

[Paul Broad] And for us sorry?

[Malcolm Roberts] So, many complicating factors.

[Paul Broad] Yeah, many. But, for us that, you know, we look on the other side. I mean, when the bush fires happened here, 18 months ago, the tragedy of those fires, only for Colongra – Only for Colongra the lights were a struggle to stay on in New South Wales. And we faced, because of the contract market that Roger was describing, we looked at losing somewhere in the order of $150 million because we were on the wrong side of the contracts. Colongra came on, we lost, I think, $30 odd million in an hour and a half, which is the risk to business. We are in a risky business, eh? So you gotta take the losses at times. So, you gotta be able to have faster firming generation to enable this transition to happen. That’s just what’s happening now, it’s happening in Queensland right now. Queensland have 400,000 properties without power. There’s a hospital in Queensland on emergency diesel. Right now. This is real. And they’re firing up gas plants. Please, this is serious. This is deadly serious. These are people who are in serious predicaments. And we sit here today. Let me tell you, I spend my life thinking about this. That’s what I do every day. I think about what we can do, to not let that happen.

[Malcolm Roberts] And Mr. Broad, I’ve been thinking about it for decade. I don’t have your level of expertise in the electricity sector, but we knew this time was coming. Based upon policies that Labor and Liberal governments have pushed. Does the decision of Snowy Hydro Limited, to undertake such an investment at Curry Curry, indicate it has a lesser risk aversion than its private sector rivals?

[Paul Broad] No, I don’t think that’s true at all. I think EA has obviously seen that they need to go. I think that as I say, energy has, AGL had other considerations to think about. I can’t comment on origin. I can’t work that out, because they have a wonderful hydro plant just on the edge of the Sydney Basin and the Victoria Falls Hydro Plant. It’s a fabulous plant. So I can’t really look into that, but I don’t think a difference on risk. We manage risk to the enth degree.

[Malcolm Roberts] So, is it because private firms just cannot justify the risk and investment because government has favoured high cost renewables? Or unreliables, as I call them?

[Paul Broad] I don’t think so. No.

[Malcolm Roberts] You don’t think so?

[Paul Broad] I think Energy Australia has proven that –

[Man] Energy Australia has proved positive of that effectively.

[Malcolm Roberts] Sorry?

[Man] Energy Australia has proved positive of that effectively.

[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. So isn’t Snowy 2.0, coming back to Snowy 2.0.. Oh well, let’s just ask another question on Curry. Isn’t the private sector effectively competing with government subsidised unreliables, especially after Matt Kean in New South Wales, and Lily D’Ambrosio in Victoria recently declared further fostering of unreliables and with transmission lines and guaranteed payments and controls, favouring and protecting unreliables?

[Paul Broad] So, I think the subsidies are flung to the private sector as much as anyone else. I note that Energy Australia got $80 million, I think or there abouts. So I think 50 from New South Wales and some from the Feds. I noticed Twiggy Forrest got $30 million for his proposed LNG plant. I’m sure he needs the $30 million. He got his – He got his $30 million for that. So there was a lot, you know, I don’t think you’ve singled out any one groups in the industry. But the transition is happening. Let’s be clear. The transition is happening. Once the renewables gets and transmission can deliver to market, the firming that needs to be built is massive. It is on a scale that it’s hard to even comprehend.

[Malcolm Roberts] Well, we have the Minister himself, the last question, Chair. The Minister himself, Mr. Taylor, has cited Bloomberg’s graph on support of clean energy or unreliable energy, as I’d call it. And Australian, per capita, is investing more. Twice as much as the next major country investing in this unreliables energy. We’re investing double the United States, six times what China is doing. And we’ve already heard from you and Mr. Whitby, what’s happening as this transition occurs, this forced transition, and it’s bringing considerable risk to our whole Electricity Sector. So, I would see Snowy 2.0 itself as an admission of failure because it relies on high peak power rates. It wouldn’t work without that.

[Paul Broad] I think that’s a comment, not a question, sir.

[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah. Thank you, Chair.

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Turnbull brought socialism to Australia, what’s changed?

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I ask the Liberal Party, what’s changed since Malcolm Turnbull left? The answer is nothing, not a single policy has changed.

What we see in this budget is a complete lack of vision to enhance our productive capacity with dams, rail, ports and visionary infrastructure. Just sugar hits in the lead up to an election.

Transcript

[Gary Hardgrave] Yeah I mean, Malcolm Roberts, I, for what it’s worth, one of my grandfathers was a truck driver. The other one was a labourer, his last job pick-and-shovel work on the Gold Coast Council. I mean, it’s not exactly absent from my family, that blue collar tradition.

What I don’t get is where Labour and these trendies in the inner suburbs think they can actually relate to the workers and the doers, many of them now forgetting team red and team blue and looking at one nation and other independents, because they want to see real government action when it comes to liberating their right to earn a living, liberating their opportunity to own their own home. Surely you must be hearing and seeing all of that.

[Malcolm Roberts] Oh, well and truly, Gary, you have hit the nail on the head. And perhaps I can go back to something Bronwyn said when I was on with her last year, and that was she was talking about Malcolm Turnbull’s book release, because it’s not just the Labour Party that has lost touch. And she rattled off several things that Turnbull had done.

One was the Water Act, the submarines contract, and she rattled off two others, just so easily as Bronwyn always does. And then she said, “You know the real problem “that Malcolm Turnbull brought to this Liberal party, “he brought socialism here, “and he’s driven socialism into the Liberal Party.” So I ask the Liberal Party, what’s changed since Malcolm Turnbull left?

Nothing, not a single policy has changed. And what we see in this budget is a complete lack of vision to enhance our productive capacity for the future. There’s no infrastructure spending other than trains and, city trains and roads. We need much more than that to restore our productive capacity, to give people a good job.

The other thing, the other point I raised with this budget is that there’s nothing done on the basics. The basics, exactly as you just said, Gary. We need tax reform. Look at, look at a person pays now, the median income in our country is only $49,000 a year. Thanks to Labour and Liberal, our energy costs have gone through the roof. We’ve gone from the being the lowest-priced electricity in the world to amongst the highest in the world. That is destroying manufacturing.

It’s putting cost of living out of the range of families, especially, median income, 50% of the people earn less than $49,000 a year. And electricity is now a huge tax burden. So, and the third thing is fantasy. We’ve got good coal-fired power. We can build hydro electricity, reliable, synchronous, and cheap. What are we betting the house on in the future? We’re burning down our current house and the future house we’re gonna build is hydrogen. We’ve gone from fossil fuels to fantasy fuels. And, you know, this is just bloody ridiculous.

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How Northern Australia is left behind by the government

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The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility has been slammed as too hard to access and failing in its job to support growth in the North.

While this bill will hopefully begin to fix that, the real problems are far bigger. Access to cheap, reliable electricity, water and an efficient tax system are the biggest blockages to development. Fix those and the entire country will boom.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, Senator Hanson and I are passionate about developing the northern part of our country. The 2015 government white paper clearly articulated the unique challenges facing our north. It’s a no-brainer. Consider these things: long distances; highly variable weather, with more extreme weather in cyclones; services; shortage of services; and reliable and accessible infrastructure—which we simply take for granted here in the south. There are no economies of scale in the north, and they have smaller populations and plenty of communications blackouts.

In spite of the best intentions, a big pot of money and all the knowledge required to develop a robust fit-for-purpose infrastructure fund to meet the needs of the north, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility has not been fit for purpose. As a member of the Select Committee on the effectiveness of the Australian Government’s Northern Australia agenda, I repeatedly felt disappointed to hear witnesses across northern Australia stating that getting money from NAIF was impossible.

Northern Australia is operating from a lower base than in the south. The foundational pieces that we take for granted here in the south—all-weather road access, reliable internet and access to a skilled workforce and highly qualified professionals, be they in the trades, engineering or medicine—are not readily available across northern Australia.

NAIF needed to be adding value to northern development at a grassroots level, yet missed that target altogether. It’s significant that, for a 20-year development horizon, the first five years have been far from optimal. We welcome the changes included in this legislation, but the ground lost during the last five years was an unnecessary opportunity cost and loss of momentum. The government had all the information it needed to have made better decisions from the start.

A more accessible NAIF is not the only element, though, that needs to be addressed. It’s ironic that the issues that need addressing to facilitate development in the north are systematically being dismantled in the south due to atrocious federal and state governments. For example, energy, land tenure and water access and price are severe problems and hurdles in the north. How the hell can these be addressed and solved with policies currently destroying energy, destroying water access and raising water prices, and destroying land tenure in the south? The problems in the north cannot be solved with these destructive policies.

It’s wonderful to have NAIF improved, but we need to get the governance in this country fixed. The core issue suppressing development in the north is atrocious state and federal governance. People, their talents and resources are being suffocated under the stifling morass of bureaucracy inherent in the interference, overlap and duplication of government agencies, state and federal. Until this poor governance is addressed, the good work that NAIF can bring will be diluted and development in the north will remain painfully slow, to the whole country’s detriment.

I look forward to the next review to see how quickly and effectively this last $2.5 billion brings northern Australia along with the rest of the country. We will be support being this bill, especially given the deadline of 30 June for the changes, and we will be closely scrutinising all amendments. We will not be supporting racially based amendments. We will improve assistance to the people in the north, and I point out some of the comments in my dissenting report to the Northern Australia agenda inquiry. We will be balanced and measured, but we will always ensure responsibility is with the right people.

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