Malcolm’s Official Speeches in Parliament

Australians Pay the Price for Net-Zero

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The rising cost of living in Australia is due to Net-Zero “rorts” and now they’re adding another one – the Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS).

The Labor government is using taxpayer money to fund solar and wind in a way that lacks transparency and accountability. For example: Energy Minister Chris Bowen awarded substantial taxpayer money to a wind turbine project fund whose chair is former Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Bowen did so just days after the fund purchased the project. How much did he give? Possibly billions of dollars.

This process allows for unethical profiteering and lacks proper oversight. Decisions are made behind closed doors with no public access to the bidding or selection criteria. The secrecy surrounding the CIS could enable “favouritism” and corruption without any way to verify or challenge decisions. Tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money may be getting handed out in long-term contracts without public knowledge or scrutiny. We just don’t know!

CSIRO’s GenCost recent report on electricity prices is biased and misleading, with even CSIRO now admitting coal is cheaper than wind and solar. Despite this admission, the report relies on a secret model and questionable assumptions that appear designed to discredit coal, raising concerns about transparency and integrity.

Government agencies pushing net zero policies are misleading Australians. Ditch the Net-Zero nonsense and put Australians first.

Transcript

Australian lives are getting more expensive every day because of net zero rorts. Power bills keep going up and the national debt keeps going up, because Australian taxpayers, renters, pensioners, small businesses and anyone who turns on a light are paying for rorts. 

I use this opportunity to detail just one of these rorts—it’s not illegal, yet it’s completely unethical—occurring under the Capacity Investment Scheme. The Capacity Investment Scheme is a wind and solar slush fund that Minister Chris Bowen personally administers. I’m going to quote energy expert Aidan Morrison extensively, and we thank him for all of his contributions to the energy debate in this country. He said: 

This is the story of how a fund chaired by former Labor PM Julia Gillard acquired a wind farm project just six days before Labor Energy Minister Chris Bowen underwrote its future revenues with taxpayer money. 

Today we’ve learned Julia’s fund is trying to flip it. For a profit. 

HMC Capital’s ‘Energy Transition Fund’ rushed to acquire the Neoen Victoria portfolio. They hadn’t even raised any money in their fund. They closed with almost a billion dollars worth of borrowed money and IOU’s. 

Less than a week later, Chris Bowen announced Kentbruck Wind Farm to be successful in the first round of the Capacity Investment Scheme. My rough calculations suggest they will receive something like a billion dollars from taxpayers (and maybe much more) over 15 years. 

Sweet deal. A billion dollars of fancy financial monopoly money one week. A billion dollars of promised taxpayer dollars the next. 

… … … 

Unlike the UK who publish a ‘going rate’ for technology subsidies, our renewables— 

unreliables— 

are subsidised through a secret tender process— 

under the Capacity Investment Scheme. He went on to say: 

Every project gets to ask for whatever revenue they want to proceed. @AEMO_Energy— 

that’s the Australian Energy Market Operator— 

facilitates a secret beauty pageant, where they award points for things like indigenous participation or community engagement, alongside financial value. 

And Chris Bowen makes the final call. 

The bids remain secret. There’s no cap to the pay-outs. Since AEMO is a private company, there is no scope for an FOI— 

freedom of information— 

request, and AEMO aren’t not subject to parliamentary oversight through Senate Estimates. 

So— 

based on the public information— 

no-one can ever prove an allegation that Bowen has bestowed special favour on a friend’s project if that was what he did. But equally, he can never prove that he selected strictly according to merit. We are just expected to trust the black-box of Bowen’s subsidies. 

Mr Morrison continues in a reply to his post: 

Originally it always appeared to me that @DCCEEW— 

the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water— 

would administer the scheme. 

But Bowen is determined they don’t administer it. In fact, going so far as to change the National Electricity Law to make it possible for AEMO Services to do it, and making an interim request to AEMO. 

… … … 

He could have just used the department, but that would make the process more transparent and accountable to parliament. He’s basically cutting corners to cut out any chance of oversight. 

In Mr Morrison’s original post, he says: 

Every dollar of profit in this industry— 

the so-called solar and wind industry— 

is really a cheque signed by a politician, with Chris Bowen signing all the biggest cheques, worth untold billions, in the next three years.  

It’s all legal. It’s all official. And it’s absolutely obscene. 

The most concerning part of the Capacity Investment Scheme is that we have no idea how big it is. Right now, tens of billions of dollars may be getting handed out in lock-in contracts lasting for the next 15 years. Labor created the Capacity Investment Scheme in 2023. It’s since proven extremely popular with solar and wind developers. I wonder why. Now, Minister Bowen wants to expand the program 15 per cent to 40 gigawatts. How many billions of dollars will all this cost taxpayers? We will likely never know. How much are overseas foreign companies ripping out of Australian taxpayers’ pockets under the Capacity Investment Scheme? We will never know. With this level of secrecy, rorts are almost guaranteed—and for what? 

The biased, discredited CSIRO GenCost report on the cost of electricity was released just this week. You only have to skim the Centre for Independent Studies’ energy publications to understand how, yet even CSIRO had to admit that the lower estimate for coal-fired power is cheaper than wind and solar. Now they admit it, after their fraudulent GenCost report. That’s despite a secret model the CSIRO refuses to release to the public and a number of assumptions purpose-designed to make coal look worse than reality—fraud. Fundamentally, Australians have been lied to repeatedly by government agencies. Ditch the economic nonsense from net zero. Ditch the net zero nonsense, in fact. End the corruption. Put Australians first. 

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Fake Degrees, Real Consequences—But Not for the Offenders

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In 2024, 23,000 foreign students were found to have purchased qualifications—many in aged care and early childhood—from deregistered providers like SPES Education.

This is a clear breach of their visa conditions under Section 8202 and defeats the entire purpose of studying in Australia—which is to support the Australian education industry while acquiring real skills they can use to contribute to the growth of Australia or their country of origin.

The penalty for such a serious breach of trust with the Australian people must be the cancellation of the individual’s visa cancelled and deportation, along with any family members they were permitted to bring with them while studying in Australia.

I asked Minister Watt whether the government would cancel the visas of these students and others who obtained qualifications fraudulently.

Listen closely to the gaslighting, the waffle and the “backslapping” – all to avoid admitting that the Albanese Government has no intention of deporting these illegals students.

Transcript

My question is to Minister Watt, representing the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship. In July the Australian Skills Quality Authority issued notices cancelling the qualifications of more than 4,200 foreign students, who were largely studying aged care and early childhood, after their education provider, SPES Education Pty Ltd, was deregistered for running a cash-for-diplomas operation scheme. In 2024, 23,000 foreign students were caught purchasing their qualifications, which is a breach of condition 8202, applying to all class 500 student visa holders. In short, these foreign students are in breach of their visas. Minister, will you cancel the visas of these 23,000 students and any others who cheated when purchasing their qualification? 

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for the Environment and Water): Thank you, Senator Roberts. While I understand you prefer to ask these types of questions through the frame of migration, the matters you are asking about probably fit more within the responsibilities of the Minister for Skills and Training, Minister Giles, but I do represent him here, so I can still answer that question. 

We are very proud of the fact that we have reformed the compliance measures around international education to weed out the shonks who had been running international education operations and proliferated under the former coalition government. The international training system that was left behind by the Murrison government was not just a joke; it was crooked. We had shonks and crooks unfortunately running these sorts of operations, exploiting international students who were here, taking money off them and providing them with dodgy qualifications that weren’t fit for the kind of work they went on to do. So we are proud of those reforms. 

As you say, Senator Roberts, it has resulted in thousands of qualifications being cancelled, as they should have been, because in some cases people were being awarded qualifications without doing any training or any study whatsoever; basically, you paid for a qualification and you got it. That’s not how the system should work. It’s how the system worked under the former coalition government, but it’s not how the system works under this Labor government. Again, we make no apology for taking back the qualifications of people, so-called students, who have obtained qualifications through those means, and we make absolutely no apology for going after the shonks who were running those kinds of organisations. They have no place in our system. They actually tarnish Australia’s reputation as a provider of international education, and we will continue to go after them. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary? 

Under both Australian and Queensland law, a person who obtains a job using a faked qualification has committed two offences: using deception and forgery to obtain a financial advantage. Both carry a penalty of seven years in jail. This is not just a foreign student breaching their student visa conditions; this is serious criminal behaviour. Minister, have you brought in so many foreign students and so many new arrivals that you have lost the ability to police clear-cut federal law? 

The PRESIDENT: Minister Wong? 

Senator Wong: President, I would ask you to consider whether that question is in order, given that it appears to go to a question about criminal provisions or offences under state legislation that clearly can’t be in the portfolio responsibilities the minister is representing. 

Senator ROBERTS: My question goes to the quality of immigrants that are being allowed into this country and turning out to be criminals. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, you also referred to the qualifications or the penalties in the Queensland and Australian jurisdictions. 

Senator Scarr: President, speaking on the point of order, it is a fact that the Australian immigration legislation does cross-refer to state criminal legislation with respect to calibrating what is serious or not-so-serious criminal conduct. I just provide that for your assistance. 

The PRESIDENT: In response to your point of order, Senator Wong, the minister can answer the question to the extent that it goes to his portfolio or portfolios, his areas, but I do remind everyone in the chamber that it doesn’t go to legal opinion. 

Senator WATT: Senator Roberts, I think we’re all used to you and other One Nation senators asking questions that involve pejorative statements towards migrants, and it would appear that that is the intention for this term as well. How you decide to use your questions is a matter for you. 

The PRESIDENT: Minister Watt, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts. 

Senator Roberts: An unfounded imputation, President. I happen to be an immigrant. 

The PRESIDENT: There is no need for the added piece. Senator Roberts, the minister was describing the language with which a question was asked, so it doesn’t go to imputation. 

Senator WATT: To answer your question, Senator Roberts, as I say, when the issue of fraudulent qualifications came to light, we took action. I was a little bit involved in this in my previous portfolio, and my recollection is that a very thorough search was done with employers who may have been employing the people involved. I will come back to you if this is wrong, but my recollection is that there was not very much evidence, if any at all, that people were being employed using those qualifications. As I say, if that’s wrong, I will come back to you. We do take this matter seriously, and we will keep acting against it. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary? 

Foreign students can now bring family members with them, a prize for which many are clearly prepared to break the law. Deporting 27,200 crooked students and the thousands of family members they brought with them will free up thousands of homes and help ease the housing crisis and record homelessness that your government has caused through catastrophically high immigration. Minister, isn’t it time we freed up homes for Australians who deserve them ahead of continuing to import criminals? 

The PRESIDENT: Minister Wong? 

Senator Wong: President, I would ask you to consider whether the use of that adjective, which I would prefer not to repeat, about the students in that question is in order, because it suggests all—I think it was a few hundred thousand—are in fact contravening or on the wrong side of the law or whatever. I do wonder if that’s an appropriate inclusion in a question to a minister in this place. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts? 

Senator Roberts: Senator Watt has already admitted that shonks are being weeded out. We want to get rid of them—out of the country. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, the minister was referring to providers of education. Minister Wong? 

Senator Wong: On the point of order, the fact that some people may have breached the law does not make an entire cohort in breach of the law. That was the implication. It was a clear statement in the question. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts? 

Senator Roberts: We know 27,000— 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, you are not in a debate here. You either have a legitimate question or you haven’t. I am going to seek the advice of the Clerk. 

Senator Roberts interjecting— 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, we are not in the committee stage. This is question time. You ask your question. It gets ruled in or out of order if a point of order is raised. But you are not in a debate, and you are clearly not in a debate with me. Senator Roberts and Minister Wong, as is my usual practice, I am happy to review the language, but I would remind all senators that language used in questions is ultimately their responsibility and ultimately a reflection on them if there is some offence. So I will call Minister Watt. 

Senator WATT: Thanks, Senator Roberts. There are a number of assumptions in your question. One of them is that those students who obtained fraudulent qualifications were working in the occupation that that qualification was for. As I said, I am checking my records as to that situation, but I don’t think you should necessarily make that assumption. It is one thing for someone to obtain a fraudulent qualification, and that is wrong. As I said, we have taken action on that against the students by cancelling their qualifications. Also, we have taken action against some of those shonky providers. But it’s quite possible that those students may have obtained a qualification in a certain area but have been working in a completely different occupation. My recollection is that that is what the case was for those students, but I’m checking that matter. As I said, if I have heard anything further to add to that then I will advise the chamber. 

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One Million Reasons You Can’t Afford Rent

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A million foreign students and their families are in Australia—overcrowding schools, straining housing, and bleeding tens of billions of $$ out of the country.

Courses are being used as backdoor permanent residency pathways, with poor standards and little oversight.

One Nation will:

✅ Deport visa cheats
✅ End family visas for students
✅ Introduce 8-year wait times for benefits
✅ Free up homes for young Aussies

It’s time to fix the rort and put Australians first.

Transcript

 I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for the Environment and Water (Senator Watt) to a question without notice I asked today relating to international students.

I asked: has the government lost control of student visa holders? The Australian public have had enough of the government pretending immigration is fine. So many people are entering that the government has lost control. Foreign students are now allowed to bring in spouses, de facto partners and children under 18 who attend state schools and contribute to overcrowding. Spouses can work 24 hours a week, or, if the student is a postgraduate, they can work full time with no restrictions. Buying a first degree and coming in as a graduate student opens the door to a financial windfall and helps to explain how foreign visa holders were able to last year send $15 billion home to their families—money that leaves Australia forever, making our economy and our people poorer.

In the last two years, the early education graduate diploma at the Southern Cross University has had 6,000 enrolments. The ABC reports that courses like this are being used as permanent residency pathways, with courses dumbed down to keep the gravy train going. There are confirmed issues around graduates not speaking English and not understanding child protection policies, safe sleep or even hygiene. There are 1.1 million foreign students and their families currently in Australia.

One Nation will deport every visa holder who is breaching their visa, a figure close to 100,000 when the number of dishonest foreign students is included. We will introduce an eight-year waiting period for social security benefits, including Medicare, and we will cancel the visa for spouses and siblings to accompany students entirely. In the age of online learning, there is no need for a student with children to come to Australia in person. The Albanese government’s student visa rort is selling out young Australians, causing record homelessness. We will free up tens of thousands of houses for young Australians, who, thanks to the government, currently face the worst housing crisis and the worst housing market in Australian history. (Time expired)

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Scrap the EV Slush Fund

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One Nation stands firmly against the Albanese Government’s push for electric vehicles (EVs), and the billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies and infrastructure spending that overwhelmingly benefit wealthy Australians. While everyday Australians face rising costs for housing, groceries, and fuel, the government continues to pour money into EV incentives and charger installations—despite low public uptake.

Australians should be free to choose the vehicle that suits their needs and budget—whether it’s a ute, a four-wheel drive, or a V8.

One Nation would cancel all policies that penalise internal combustion engines and calls for the return of reliable, efficient petrol and diesel vehicles.

It’s time to revoke the EV slush fund and put Australians first.

Transcript

I move: 

That the Industry Research and Development (Dealership and Repairer Initiative for Vehicle Electrification Nationally (DRIVEN) Program) Instrument 2024, made under the Industry Research and Development Act 1986, be disallowed [F2024L01460]. 

What a mouthful! It’s an instrument made under the Industry Research and Development Act 1986. This is where the fun bit starts. This regulation One Nation seeks to revoke is a $60 million slush fund that climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen—there he is again—will have to splash around on pet projects. Specifically, this is $60 million for the installation and repair of electric vehicle chargers. These are electric vehicle chargers from which only some of the most well-off of Australians, who can afford an EV, will benefit. While rents are skyrocketing, houses are more unaffordable than ever, groceries keep getting more expensive and beer is heading towards $15 a pint, taxpayers should not be slugged with more taxes to pay for this government’s slush fund. 

Why is the government obsessed with putting everyone into electric vehicles? Some of them have decent speed, admittedly, when you put your foot down, yet the range on purely electric vehicles—battery electric vehicles—is mostly terrible. It gets even worse when trying to tow something. Forums for the Ford F-150 Lightning, a battery powered ute, are full of horror stories that unfold as soon as a trailer is attached. This is worldwide. 

Australians already know all of this and are voting with their wallets. The rejection of battery EVs shows up in new car sales figures. Battery electric vehicles were just 6.5 per cent of new car sales, and how long have they been offered? Years. Even here, in the capital of ‘Wokeistan’, Canberra, home of the country’s loudest virtue signallers, battery electric vehicles are just 3.6 per cent of all vehicles on the road. This is despite every effort of government and multinational corporations trying to pull Australians away from the trusty petrol and diesel engine. There has been a near decade of propaganda and lies trying to convince Australians to make the switch—we’re not buying it. 

Never mind the hugely expensive tax breaks that give an EV buyer tens of thousands of dollars. These tax breaks include exemptions from the lower luxury car tax threshold; exemptions from the penalties under the new vehicle efficiency standard, or the ute tax, as it has become known; no fuel excise at 50.8 cents a litre; exemptions from fringe benefits tax, representing a $12,000 saving on a $60,000 EV but costing taxpayers $550 million a year. Taxpayers pay for this. This is Robin Hood in reverse; robbing the poor to pay for the wealthy. Plus there is an array of rebates from state governments across the country. They’ve thrown just about every tax break in the book at EVs, and still Australians aren’t fussed over the inferior electric vehicle products. 

More than 95 per cent of the vehicles on the road still contain internal combustion engines, the trusty petrol and diesel, the reliable petrol and diesel, the safe petrol and diesel. Naturally aspirated, turbocharged, supercharged or a hybrid set up, Australians have rightly shunned battery EVs for engines that make a noise when turned on. Tradies cried out in horror when the legendary V8, from the Toyota LandCruiser 200 series and utes, was removed from market in anticipation of the coming government regulations and crackdowns. 

Are EVs cheaper to run? Well, a CarExpert road trip test throws real doubt on that. They drove two BMWs on a road trip from Melbourne to Sydney. They were the same exact car, the same year of make, with the same start and the same finish point. The only difference is that one was the battery electric version and the other was hydrocarbon fuelled. When they arrived in Sydney, the electric vehicle charging had cost more for the road trip than filling up with the most expensive 98 petrol. Of course, electricity isn’t free, and neither are these chargers. The minister’s slush fund that we’re seeking to disallow here is paying for the installation of chargers that are businesses in themselves, so we’re paying for a business. Taxpayers will foot the bill for installing a charger, and the EV business will reap all the profits from the charge they sell through it forever, for eternity. We would never do this with service stations, because it’s bloody ridiculous. Taxpayers should not be paying for the profits of these often foreign multinational companies who run charging services.  

Then there’s the fire risk. Everyone knows about this. The electric vehicle industry’s dirty little secret: the batteries and these chargers present an extreme fire risk. Car ferries carrying thousands of new car deliveries have been left to burn and potentially sink after battery fires have broken out mid-ocean. Just last month, News.com reported: 

There are concerns an abandoned EV carrier floating aimlessly in the Pacific Ocean could continue to burn for weeks … 

Salvage operators have finally reached the Morning Midas around 350km south of Adak, Alaska, a week after it first caught fire and 22 crew were rescued by the US Coast Guard after being forced to abandon ship. 

The floating inferno is said to have been caused by the lithium-iron batteries in the 70 electric vehicles on board—batteries that can cause fires that can burn for weeks. 

Some apartment tower complexes have banned battery electric vehicles in their car parks. Our fire departments are sounding the alarm on the increased risk battery fires present. These battery fires often can’t be simply put out and must be left for days to burn themselves out. One suggestion to deal with an electric vehicle fire is to have the burning wreck forklifted—imagine the forklift driver!—into a waiting shipping container of water to try and keep it contained. That’s a suggestion. Seriously! That’s the best firefighting strategy we have when one of these EVs goes up. 

Insurance companies have confirmed the risk in electric vehicles is real with their increased premiums. Insurance comparison site Compare the Market conducted a study of 12 insurers and has shown the top five bestselling EVs are 43 per cent more expensive to insure than similar internal combustion models. So EVs are more expensive to buy, more expensive to drive, more expensive to charge and more expensive to insure. We are running out of categories to find out where EVs are actually cheaper. 

What about environmentally friendly? Let’s ask that question. As for being environmentally friendly, the process for making batteries is one of the most environmentally destructive in the world, killing the environment to save the planet. The hundreds of kilograms of minerals that go into a battery include aluminium, copper, steel, iron, graphite, nickel, lithium, manganese and cobalt. These require extremely intensive mining and refinement and huge, huge amounts of energy. The resources and energy consumed in electric vehicle manufacturing is way above those consumed in making a petrol or diesel engine car. Many of these raw minerals are sourced from conflict-torn places like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, using child labourers and slaves. The overall environmental impact of building an EV is devastating, as is the social impact. The raw materials are sourced from ethically questionable countries and processed almost exclusively by Communist China controlled companies. That’s where the focus on EVs leaves Australians—completely reliant on China. 

Then there’s Minister Tony Burke, whose Chinese EV says ‘Don’t plug in the phone.’ Worries about being reliant on China aren’t overblown. Government departments are warning Labor politicians of the same thing. The Strategist journal reported in November: 

Senate estimates … heard the remarkable revelation that Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has had to take ‘precautions’ based on warnings from his own department to protect himself and the nation’s sensitive information from Burke’s own Chinese-made electric car— 

He’s got to protect himself and the security of the country from his Chinese electric car— 

The risks with such cars, according to Home Affairs officials, might include having data collected from the owner’s phone if it were connected to the car, voice calls eavesdropped on, image collection from the car’s external cameras and geolocation tracking—meaning that if Burke drove to a sensitive government location the car’s manufacturer would be able to see. 

If these are risks to ministers, those same risks are inherent for all Australians. Bloody ridiculous. 

What is even more confusing about the government EV push is that petrol and diesel engines are only getting better and more efficient in their newest versions. Did anyone mention weight? Electric vehicles are humongous in weight. Small, turbocharged, extremely efficient diesel engines were becoming the powertrain of choice, especially in small cars. Fuel efficiency numbers we couldn’t have dreamt of 20 years ago were being beaten. Then all the car makers in the world, and many stupid governments around the world, seemingly overnight, had to imagine that petrol vehicles and diesel engines were dead. Imagine that. Everyone would be driving an EV, apparently blind to or not caring for the downsides in range, resources and longevity. Just as we were getting to some of the cleanest, most efficient diesel and petrol vehicles ever made, why did the government decided no-one would ever want to drive them again? They decided for the taxpayers. They decided for the citizens of Australia. 

Why does the government want to splash billions of dollars into technology that Australians clearly don’t want and that is environmentally reprehensible? The answer may lie in the plan for Australia’s energy grid. The government needs electric vehicles hooked up to the grid under their plans for a consumer energy resources like EV batteries to be connected to virtual power plants. They want to use your car as a battery. The government can’t afford to build all the batteries needed under their net zero plan. They don’t even know how much. There is no plan. So the government wants Australians to buy an EV with a battery that can be taken over and discharged to the grid. They don’t tell you that, do they, but that is what they are wanting. The Australian Renewable Energy Agency says that batteries from EVs ‘can help stabilise the power grid by supplying power back during times of high demand’. There it is. Do you hear that in their advertisements? No. 

Like many things, this will start off as a voluntary scheme, currently called ‘bidirectional charging’ or ‘vehicle to grid’. That sounds good, but think about what it means. It means stealing your electricity when you want it. Then the inevitable threat of blackouts and the instability of the electricity grid under net zero will become an emergency, and everyone with an EV will be forced to participate. What we have now is power shortages in some states as they destroy perfectly good coal and gas generation and try and fail to replace it with solar and wind. So we’ve got a shortage of reliable electricity. And now they want to convert the car fleet, the transport fleet, to EVs to add more demand to the electricity sector. Then they want to promote artificial intelligence, which is an electricity hog. And then they want to support bitcoin mining. Where is all this going to lead? It’s going to lead to massive, sky-high prices as well as shortages, unreliability, instability and insecurity. 

The government’s plan, or what it claims is a plan, is all very complicated, but they don’t know what they’re doing. That is fact. One Nation’s solution is much simpler: Australians should be allowed to drive whatever car they want, whatever car they can afford, whether it’s a four-wheel drive, a ute or a smart car. Only One Nation has a policy to cancel all policies which lead to the death of the V8 engine being provided as an option to Australian car buyers. Porsche and Mercedes-Benz said that EVs would take over, and they stopped making V8s. Now they’re bringing back V8s and they’re scaling back their EV plans. I ask the Senate to revoke this electric vehicle slush fund and join One Nation in bringing back the V8. 

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One Nation’s Housing Fix

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One Nation backs Senator Bragg’s Housing Investment Probity Bill to stop public funds flowing to CFMEU-linked projects via Cbus.

We would however go further. One Nation would:

✅ Shut down the Housing Future Fund and the federal Department of Housing.

✅ Cut $50K off home costs by fixing the Building Code and suspending GST on building materials.

✅ Create a People’s Bank for 5% fixed-rate mortgages.

✅ Allow a person’s super account to invest in their first home.

✅ Deport visa violators to free up housing.

✅ Stop foreign ownership of houses.

Australia needs homes and jobs — not government waste.

Transcript

Senator Bragg has advanced the Housing Investment Probity Bill 2024, which modifies the charter of the Housing Australia Future Fund to prevent financing of projects that Cbus owns. Cbus is a superannuation fund with legal affiliation to the CFMEU. The CFMEU are currently under a federally appointed administrator, a move that was a long time coming. Queensland Premier Crisafulli has called an inquiry into the CFMEU’s systemic violence, intimidation, misogyny and bullying. This bill from Senator Bragg is common sense—to prevent cash leaking through Cbus to the CFMEU until the CFMEU clean up their act and get back to representing Australian workers and to working constructively with industry to create secure, well-paid jobs at scale for all Australians.  

Australia needs housing, and we need breadwinner jobs. We have a responsibility to ensure infrastructure is built on time and on budget. One Nation does, though, propose a better alternative to Senator Bragg’s bill. We would shut down the housing future fund and the federal department of housing. Housing is a state responsibility, a state power. Government has no role in building houses. Its presence in the market drives up prices and slows down production, displacing private builders and monopolising building products. We will wind the building code back to remove the woke nonsense and the net-zero nonsense which were recently introduced into the code, and suspend the GST on building materials. Together these will cut $50,000 off a new home’s construction cost. Independently assessed, around $49,000 of that comes out of the modifications to the building code, which are rubbish. We will take the $11 billion in funds under management at the housing future fund and roll that into a people’s bank, accessed through Australia Post, offering mortgages for first home buyers who are Australian citizens. It’s been proven here in the past in Australia. It’s been proven in North America. It’s been proven in Japan and New Zealand.  

Mortgages will be on five per cent interest with a five per cent deposit, fixed for up to 30 years. The five per cent deposit can come from the first home owner grant and then be topped up using the applicant’s own superannuation account, protected with a lien. Notice I said ‘account’, not ‘fund’. This will not be a drawdown from super. Super is useful for retirement. Our policy simply replaces super funds investing in housing with the person’s own super account investing in their own house. As the house grows in value, so too does the value of the lien held in the person’s own superannuation account, protecting their retirement. Someone who has been working in the workforce for five years on average, and who is entitled to a first home owner’s grant, may be able to move into their own home straightaway.  

We must do more for the young Australians who this government, and other recent governments, have sold out. Young people who did everything society asked—they studied hard, stayed out of trouble, got their degrees, got their high school qualifications—now have a HECS debt, rent and a grocery bill they can’t afford. And they are in despair, right across Australia. 

The government’s housing measures are complete rubbish. They are an insult to Australians. The government’s own incoming government report stated clearly that their construction targets would not be met—bloody hopeless. Canberra, as I’ve said many times, is the source of every major problem in this country, and one of the biggest problems we have in this country right now is a homelessness crisis—an inhuman homelessness catastrophe.  

In my state of Queensland, going from the north in Cairns, every major provincial city has a homelessness crisis, a housing crisis. In Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, Gladstone, Bundaberg, Maryborough, the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast, Brisbane—the capital city of what should be the wealthiest state in the world has got homeless people sleeping on the riverbanks, under bridges, in tents and in caravans—Ipswich, Boonah, Toowoomba, in every major provincial city, there are homeless.  

If you drive into Gympie, in a concrete car park, there are homeless people in tents. Parents come home at night—working mothers and fathers—wondering if their kids are still in the car and then sleeping in the car. Where do they go to the toilet? Where do they have showers? These are good people. And then the councils just put the bulldozer through the tents, put the bulldozer through the cars and that’s it: gone.  

Why is that happening in Queensland? It’s because we’ve got so many people leaving Victoria to come up to Queensland. In particular, we have got catastrophic, inhuman immigration levels that this government and the previous government have perpetuated. Catastrophic immigration started with John Howard’s government when he doubled immigration. Every prime minister since has been on the trend of increasing immigration.  

We’ve got so many foreigners owning houses. Some of them are locked up as an investment, not being used. We’ve got 75,000 people here on residence visas illegally. One Nation says, ‘Deport them immediately.’ We’ve got students here in contravention of a student visa—up to 100,000 of them. Get rid of them. Free up some houses. We’ve got accommodation capacity for 100,000 students; we’ve got about 600,000 overseas students in the country. That can’t continue. One Nation says: start with the demand and deport people who are here illegally or in contravention of their visa—deport them. Stop foreign ownership of housing, which will increase the supply. And, regarding the construction costs that I’ve mentioned, our policy goes beyond what I’ve mentioned briefly. We’ve also mentioned the finances. Our One Nation policy fixes demand, supply, construction and finance. Senator Grogan said that housing cannot be fixed overnight. It can be fixed close to overnight, just by doing the things One Nation has said: address demand, supply, construction and finance. We must do better. It takes several months to build a house; it takes several months to build an apartment complex. It doesn’t take long, though, to deport people who are here illegally. It doesn’t take long at all. That frees up supply and reduces the demand. 

Canberra, as I said, is the cause of every major problem in this country, and it comes from both Liberal and Labor governments—every major problem. The government’s housing measures—I repeat—are rubbish. Their own incoming government report stated clearly that their construction targets would not be met, yet they perpetuate the nonsense. We must do better. One Nation are in support, and I thank Senator Bragg for this legislation. 

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HECS Relief Should Mean Real Change, Not Just Headlines

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One Nation voted against the Government’s HECS bill because it’s a con job that’s going to leave students, graduates and taxpayers worse off in the long run.

The government has outright lied. The effective debt cut is just 2% taking into account previous indexation – indexation that was made worse because the government caused the inflation crisis. This Bill does nothing to fix the broken University sector.

Here’s what One Nation would do for students:

  • Publish graduate salary data: Universities should disclose average graduate salaries at one, five, and ten years post-graduation to help students make informed decisions about their degrees.
  • Cut fees for courses: One Nation proposes reducing fees for subjects that rely heavily on outdated prerecorded lectures and frequent group assignments.
  • Enforce English standards: Universities should strictly enforce English proficiency for international students to ensure fair group work and protect domestic students’ academic outcomes.
  • Fix HECS indexation timing: The government should apply withheld HECS repayments before indexation to prevent students from being unfairly charged interest on money already paid.
  • Increase university accountability: Universities must be held responsible for the quality and outcomes of the degrees they offer, especially when public funds are involved.

All of these things must be fixed or HECS debts will be racked up again and graduates will be back to where they started.

Transcript

The Albanese Labor government is selling students a con job. This isn’t a HECS refund; it’s taking students back to where they started, before the government caused the inflation crisis. I will say that again: this isn’t a HECS refund; it’s just taking students backwards to where they started before the government caused the inflation crisis. 

On the original HECS indexation rates, HECS debts would have been indexed 23 per cent since COVID, or 2020. Accounting for recent cuts, this figure is still 18 per cent. While Labor keeps posting TikToks saying, ‘You’re getting a 20 per cent cut,’ the reality is you’re only getting a two per cent discount on the 2020 balance, at best. The Albanese government’s student debt reduction is fiscally irresponsible, lazy and vote-buying and does nothing to address underlying issues in university education. 

These changes are reported to cost $16 billion in forgiven debt, which adds to roughly $3 billion in forgiveness from changes to indexation rates in relation to high COVID inflation that came into effect in December 2024. This $19 billion goes onto the national debt, on which all taxpayers pay a far higher amount of interest than HECS debt indexation. Those who’ve got university degrees and those who haven’t all pay. Taxpayers, who are more likely than not going to be people with degrees, are going to have to pay back that national debt and then some. It’s just shifting the debt from your HECS account to the tax you’ll have to pay in the future.  

When it comes to HECS debt, many young people have signed up to take on a huge amount of debt, often for degrees that failed to deliver on the university’s promise of a high-paying job in the future. That is what universities promise. Standards of tertiary education have continued to deteriorate. Indoctrination has become more important than education, and promised job prospects have failed to materialise for many students. 

Meanwhile, the universities and their extravagantly paid vice-chancellors are laughing all the way to the bank. In 2020, the heads of 16 of Australia’s 41 universities each earned more than $1 million a year, more than the head of the world’s best university, Oxford. A number of Australia’s universities generate more than $2 billion a year in revenue. The universities face no accountability for the quality of teaching they pump out. Under the HECS system, the government pays the university upfront, while the student pays the debt back to government for rest of their life. 

Tertiary education has turned into an extremely lucrative government guaranteed cash cow, with students holding the debt for degrees that fail to deliver quality teaching or the promise of a good, stable job. Many courses are being delivered with prerecorded lectures that are many years old. Delivering degrees is getting cheaper, so course fees should be getting cheaper too, but they’re not. One Nation would cut the fees for subjects that use repeated prerecorded lectures and large numbers of group assignments. 

The increasing use of group assignments so that universities can pay for fewer assessors per course is another real issue. In these group assignments, students are frequently grouped with foreign international students, on whom universities rely for even more income. English standards are not being strictly enforced, so Australian students find themselves having to do the entire group’s work or watch their grades suffer as a group result. One Nation will strictly enforce English standards for international students so that universities aren’t sacrificing Australian educations to increase profit from international students, to the detriment of Australian students. Our universities should be focused on delivering a good education for Australian students first. That’s the first priority. 

There are still big problems with the way HECS debts are indexed, though. Employers withhold extra tax from HECS debtors on every pay under the pay as you go withholding scheme. While extra tax has been withheld every pay cycle, the extra tax paid is only deducted from the study debts once the person’s tax return has been lodged. The earliest someone can do this is 1 July. HECS debts, however, are indexed earlier, on the larger balance, before the payment on 1 June. This means that, despite the student paying extra tax for their HECS all through the year and the government holding that money for HECS at the time, the indexation rate is applied to the larger balance, without that withheld tax being applied, which would reduce the interest added on top of at indexation. This is grossly and inherently unfair and deceptive. If the government is holding someone’s money for HECS repayments, that money should be applied to the balance before indexation is applied. To do otherwise, which is what the government’s doing, is theft. Nothing in this bill fixes this unfair situation. We’ve raised this issue of theft before, and still the government continues to steal from students. 

Finally, One Nation believes universities should be made accountable for the degrees they deliver. One Nation believes universities should publish the average salaries of graduates from their degrees one year, five years and 10 years after graduation so that future students know what they’re signing up for. Is doing the degree going to be worth the debt? This could be done per university and per individual course, anonymously and in aggregate, giving everyone clear data on what future job prospects they can expect, without divulging identities. This is possible already. Simply link the unique student identifier and their course with the student’s tax file number and their salary reported to the Taxation Office. 

In summary, the government’s HECS bill is a con job. It only returns balances back to where they were right before COVID arrived. That’s all. The debt is just transferred to the national debt, which taxpayers, like uni graduates, will have to eventually pay down with higher taxes. This bill does nothing to make sure Australian university students get an education that’s actually worthwhile. It does nothing. One Nation will vote against this bill because we do not want a con job reduction. We want a better life for university students, and this bill does not do that. We want a life that doesn’t mean a forever debt for a degree that never lives up to its promises. One Nation wants students to get education and value. 

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When Trust is Betrayed

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They promised safe and effective. What they delivered was sudden and unexpected.

For years, I’ve defended the doctor-patient relationship against bureaucratic overreach and pharmaceutical influence. The COVID response exposed regulatory failure, destroyed trust, and harmed hundreds of thousands of Australians who trusted the medical establishment.

One Nation will shut down the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and its related crony committees, end the revolving door between regulators and industry, and demand a royal commission into the COVID response.

Australians deserve truth, justice, and a health system free from corporate control.

Transcript

‘They promised you safe and effective; instead, they delivered sudden and unexpected.’ So reads the billboard erected by NZDSOS—a group of 9,000 New Zealand doctors, health professionals and academics. There are 9,000 of them; courage is contagious. Their byline is, ‘It’s time to remove the government from the consultation room.’ 

For many years, I’ve spoken about the primacy of the doctor-patient relationship. I’ve spoken against the insidious influence of health bureaucrats creeping into that relationship—influence exerted to benefit the pharmaceutical industry over the interests of everyday Australian patients. I’ve spoken about the abuse of power and regulatory capture of Ahpra and health regulators. In recent months, I have joined the fight against the Queensland health department’s decision to destroy biological samples taken from 10,000 volunteers and used to test the safety and efficacy of COVID injectables. A bad decision that, I’m happy to say, has been overturned. Thank you, Premier Crisafulli from Queensland. I always say ‘injectables’ because these dangerous, killer products are not vaccines; they’re a biological experiment which failed. Tens of thousands of people died, and many more live with adverse reactions, which is bureaucrat-speak for them having their health and lives destroyed. 

One Nation will close the Therapeutic Goods Administration and its related crony committees, filled as they are with personnel that pharmaceutical companies employed, funded, educated and now seek to regulate. Australians were healthier and safer when the health department made these decisions with the benefit of close parliamentary scrutiny. We must go back to that system. One Nation is preparing legislation to prevent the revolving door between parliament, the Public Service and private industry, so a person cannot go from regulating big pharma to working for big pharma. We continue to call for a royal commission into our COVID response. We must understand how the disproportionate, homicidal response to a bad flu killed many tens of thousands of people and maimed many more. Justice must be served or more people will die. (Time expired) 

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DITCH Net-Zero to Fix Cost of Living

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One Nation is the only party completely united in our belief that Australians deserve a better, cheaper way of life by ditching Net-Zero.

Groceries, power bills, insurance and running a small business can all be made cheaper.

Only One Nation can be trusted to put Australians first over what foreign, unelected organisations tell us to do.

Transcript

To get to what matters most in this debate over net zero, we just have to ask Australians some simple questions: is your life more affordable or more expensive over the last five years? Are you paying more or less for groceries? Is your power bill cheaper? How about the cost of a new car—how about your insurance premiums? Has your salary increased more than inflation? The answers are almost the same. It hasn’t gotten better; it’s far worse. All of these problems Australia is suffering from can be traced back directly to net zero policies. 

This isn’t just a culture war, as some people try to write it off as; this is a fight for the survival and prosperity of all Australians. This is a fight to restore our country’s position as the envy of the world. Australia is the richest country in the world for resources. We have abundant energy resources. Australia is awash with vast amounts of proven coal, oil, natural gas, uranium, rare earths and critical minerals. We should have the cheapest power prices in the world, yet we pay more for electricity than the countries to which we sell our resources. Back in 2004, the energy white paper proudly boasted Australia’s average price of electricity as being just a touch over 4c a kilowatt hour—amongst the cheapest in the world. Now the average is 33c a kilowatt hour, just 20 years later. Japan imports most of its energy resources from Australia. Japan’s electricity used to be four times more expensive than Australia’s. Now, ours is 20 per cent more expensive than Japan’s—all because of net zero. Thank you so much! 

We don’t make Fords, Holdens, Toyotas or Mitsubishis in this country anymore, because of net zero. Our steel mills, like the one in Whyalla, are going broke because of net zero. The copper smelters, like the one in Mount Isa, are shutting down because of net zero. Chocolate-maker Cadbury have said they may have to pull out of Australia because it has become undeniably expensive to manufacture in Australia. In the words of Matt Barrie, ‘Australia is about to be a country that cannot make a chocolate bar’—because of net zero. 

Wind and solar pushers have been promising Australia that it’s the cheapest way to go. They’ve been saying it for 25 years, since the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act was implemented in the year 2000, under John Howard, yet here we are today, facing desolation. With the largest amount of wind, solar, batteries and pumped hydro on the grid than ever in recorded history, life has only gotten more expensive. As the solar, wind, batteries and pumped hydro increase, electricity costs increase. This is the experience of every country that has gone down the path of net zero. As electricity gets more expensive, good jobs in manufacturing are getting shipped overseas and life gets worse for that country. 

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Labor’s Dirty Power Play: PM Personally Axes One Nation Advisers in Attack on Democracy

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Just in case anyone in the Labor Party still believes they are the good guys, have a look at this political interference and discrimination. The Prime Minister directly and personally has taken the jobs of the two advisers who worked tirelessly on my re-election campaign. This is my speech in the Senate last night.

After One Nation’s strongest federal election result ever, Senator Pauline Hanson declared: “This is not the end of an election; this is the start of a movement.” And the people are responding—membership is surging, and support is rising. Yet this election wasn’t easy. Conservative micro-parties fought One Nation harder than they fought the left. Calls for a coalition sounded good—but in practice, it was chaos. Australia doesn’t have years to waste on political experiments.

One Nation has stood firm for 28 years—through media attacks, legal battles, and political sabotage. Every challenge has made us stronger, more united, and more determined to take back government for everyday Australians. Meanwhile, real issues are being ignored. Bendigo Bank is closing 10 branches—5 of them the last in their towns. Queenstown, Tasmania, will lose its only bank. Locals will have to drive 2.5 hours over icy roads just to access basic banking. The Albanese government ignored a 15-month Senate inquiry into regional bank closures. 14 months overdue. No response. No action. Just silence while communities are left behind.

And now, the PM is targeting my office—cancelling my advisers’ positions in a disgraceful breach of parliamentary convention. This is not democracy. This is control. One Nation will not be silenced. We will not back down. We are the only party with the courage, unity, and vision to restore Australia’s prosperity—for all Australians. This is just the beginning.

Transcript

Change is coming. Following One Nation’s best ever federal election result in May, our party leader Senator Pauline Hanson declared on national TV, ‘This is not the end of an election; this is the start of a movement.’ The public have already responded, with party membership surging and their post-election poll support increasing. This was a trying election, though. Micro-parties on the conservative side fought One Nation harder than they fought our political opponents on the communist left. So many called for a coalition of conservative parties, an idea that sounds great in theory yet created an unworkable Frankenstein, setting our movement back years to allow the organisation and recalibration needed to merge disparate political positions, if indeed it were possible at all.

Australia does not have years to lose. The lights are going off in this parliamentary term. One more term from Labor or the globalist Liberals and Australia will be past the point of no return. One Nation has been here for 28 years. Our party’s character has been forged in success and in failure, and in legal warfare, media bastardry, lies and party infiltration—even prison charges that were trumped up and ultimately struck down. Every development has made us stronger, more determined, more organised and readier than ever to take the government benches from those who do not govern in the best interests of Australia. Only One Nation has the strength of conviction, the unity of purpose and the courage necessary to restore abundance and opportunity to all Australians. Only One Nation represents the entire Australian people.

Let me give you an example that 12 Tasmanian senators ignored—none of whom are One Nation senators, which is why I’m having to raise this. There’s a new crisis in regional banking services because Bendigo Bank is now closing 10 branches and 28 agencies. Five of the branches are the last banks in their towns. For those communities, that is devastating.

This is happening because Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has ignored the report of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry into bank closures in regional Australia. The government was supposed to respond within 90 days. It’s been 14 months, and the government has simply ignored it. The inquiry lasted 15 months and held 13 public hearings, with locals in town after town testifying that the banks were lying when they claimed people didn’t need branches anymore. The report observed:

When banks close their branches in regional areas, the impact on individuals and communities can be devastating and far-reaching, especially when it is the last bank in town.

This is what Queenstown in Tasmania is facing when it loses its Bendigo Bank branch in September. This is not only the last bank in town; it’s the last bank on the entire West Coast of Tasmania. The locals will have no choice and will be forced to drive 2½ hours over icy mountain roads to the next closest bank, in Burnie. On Tuesday night the West Coast Council passed a unanimous motion calling on the Albanese government to respond to the Senate inquiry—to respond!

There’s no doubt that, had the government responded to the report and its powerful recommendations, it’s unlikely Bendigo Bank would be closing these branches. It’s a scandal for this government to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars on an inquiry into rural banking services and then ignore the outcome because it might interfere with the banks’ cashless society agenda. I call on all senators to join me in demanding that the government take the Senate inquiry outcome seriously and fully implement all its recommendations.

I now make note of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s disgraceful attempt to sabotage my office over the last few weeks. The Prime Minister cancelled the positions of my two advisers and then this week arranged their notices of dismissal. I am their employer. They don’t work for you, Mr Prime Minister; they work for me. How dare you terminate my staff? What gives you the right to select my team? Using parliamentary staffing allocations to take all the staff of an Independent or crossbench senator breaks a convention, a trust, going back a hundred years. Denying me and Senator Whitten, Senator Stacey and Senator Payman any advisers at all is a disgraceful act.

One Nation has always welcomed policy debates and contests in the court of public opinion. This prime minister, though, would rather shut the opposition up than debate his rancid, divisive, wasteful policies with the one party prepared to provide real opposition, better policies and a real vision to restore Australia’s abundance—a vision that looks after the Australian people, instead of Labor Party donors, unions and globalist powers. What a bloody disgrace! This is not over.

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Ditch Net Zero – Deliver Savings to Australians

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During a recent “question time” in the senate, I asked the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change about the total cost of the net zero transition. In her absence, Minister Watt responded, estimating the cost to be between $120 billion and $130 billion. However, this figure is significantly lower than other estimates, such as Bloomberg’s $1.9 trillion.

Minister Watt claims that the government’s plan is the cheapest way to meet our future power needs. Yet, he couldn’t provide a clear figure for the taxpayer money being spent on this transition.

This lack of transparency is concerning, especially when wasteful government spending is feeding inflation and the budget remains in deficit.

One Nation is committed to holding the government accountable and ensuring that Australians know the true cost of these policies. We need a government that values transparency and makes decisions based on the best interests of the people. One Nation will ditch net-zero so that we can put more money back in your pocket.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change, Senator McAllister. Minister, what is the total cost of the net zero transition? 

The PRESIDENT: Senator McAllister is away up north, so your question is to Minister Watt. 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister Watt, what is the total cost of the net zero transition? 

Senator WATT: Thanks, Senator Roberts. Yes, I’m representing Senator McAllister who represents Minister Bowen, while she’s in Townsville for the floods. Given I am the representing minister, I’m just waiting to have those figures handed to me. But I know that we have had that transition costed, and it’s in the order of $120 billion to $130 billion. That’s my understanding. Importantly, the CSIRO—an organisation I know you haven’t got an enormous amount of time for but the most reputable science organisation in the country—and the Australian Energy Market Operator, who probably knows more about the energy market than any other group within Australia, have both made clear that ensuring that we meet our future power needs with renewables backed up by gas and firmed by batteries is the cheapest way that we can meet our power needs going forward. 

I wasn’t too far off the mark. AEMO’s integrated system plan found that the net present value under a step-change scenario towards a renewable based system is $122 billion. Of course, that’s significantly lower than the figure it will cost for Mr Dutton’s nuclear program. As I said, people as reputable in this country as the CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator have both found that it’s not just environmental benefits that we get from meeting our power needs through renewables going forwards but it’s actually the cheapest way we can do so as well. That’s the direct answer to your question—it’s $122 billion. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: Let me make the question easier. Minister, how much taxpayers’ money is the government spending on the net zero transition across forward estimates? 

Senator WATT: Thanks, Senator Roberts. I don’t have a figure just for the forward estimates, being the next four years. But, as I said, the cost of delivering our power network into the future under the government’s plan is $122 billion in net present value terms. 

Now, I know there is another plan out there. But is it really a plan, or, as Senator Canavan revealed, is it just a political fix? Whatever it is, that nuclear plan from Mr Dutton costs $600 billion. We know that means that power prices will go up by about $1,200 per household per year. And we know that, to fund that $600 billion that is required for the nuclear program, Mr Dutton will have to put in place very big cuts to things like Medicare, energy support, cost-of-living relief, housing, pensions and all manner of other things to fund the most expensive form of power you can provide. 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, Bloomberg has put the cost of Australia’s net zero transition at $1.9 trillion. One Nation uses a consensus figure of $1.5 trillion. Across forward estimates, the budget is in deficit. Wasteful, undisciplined government spending is feeding inflation. And you can’t even tell me how much will be spent on net zero across the forward estimates. Minister, will you at least give an undertaking to table, on the first day of the March sitting, the figure for the total cost of the net zero transition, including the forward estimates? 

Senator WATT: Well, I’ve already provided the figure of $122 billion. I’m not across the Bloomberg estimate that you cite, Senator Roberts, and I’m certainly not across the One Nation consensus figure. I assume that’s a consensus between you and Senator Hanson—you’ve had to sort of thrash that one out between the two of you and arrived at a consensus of $1.5 trillion! 

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts? 

Senator Roberts: I’m happy to answer Senator Watt’s question. 

The PRESIDENT: Perhaps some other time, thank you, Senator Roberts. 

Senator WATT: Maybe James Ashby was in there as well, with the calculator going, working out a consensus figure. And I certainly don’t know what assumptions underpinned the One Nation/James Ashby/Senator Hanson/Senator Roberts consensus figure. But the fact is that the cheapest way that we can meet our power needs into the future—as cited by AEMO and the CSIRO, our most eminent scientific body—is at a cost of $122 billion. That is the cheapest way we can meet our power needs, which I think is a very good reason for any government, no matter what their political party, to pursue it. 

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