The Prime Minister has caved on an election promise. After telling Australia the truth to get elected, that Bill Shorten’s net zero target would destroy the country, he has signed up to the exact same promise. Gutless, sellout, liar, there aren’t enough words to fully describe this backstabbing of the Australian people.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (09:39): Well, well, well, the Labor Party, as part of the precursor to the Albanese-Bandt coalition government, calls this a stunt. The Labor party is exactly correct. It is a stunt. The No. 1 issue here is integrity and the Greens’ complete lack of integrity. They have never provided the empirical scientific evidence for their claims. First it was Greta: ‘We’ll rely on Greta.’ Then it became, ‘We’ll rely on the Queen.’ Now, it’s, ‘We’ll rely on the Pope’—and most of them are atheists. My goodness, what are we coming to in this country? This mob is hijacking jobs—manufacturing jobs, coalmining jobs, farmers’ jobs. This is an absolute disgrace, because they show no integrity towards the people of this country; they show no integrity towards this parliament, none whatsoever. They tell lies and they make up stuff.
We now see them calling for the science. I want the science. I challenge Senator Waters to provide the empirical scientific evidence that proves carbon dioxide from human activity affects the climate and needs to be cut. She failed to provide it 11 years ago. She ran—
The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, please resume your seat. Senator Thorpe, on a point of order?
Senator Thorpe: A point of order, Mr President: the senator over here has called us ‘liars’, and I think that is unparliamentary, is it?
The PRESIDENT: Senator Thorpe, he was referring to the Greens as a whole. My view is that that is not unparliamentary. I will check with the Clerk to be sure, given I’m relatively new to this role. My ruling is correct. Please sit down, Senator Thorpe.
Senator Thorpe interjecting—
The PRESIDENT: Senator Thorpe, there is no point of order. Senator Roberts, you have the call.
Senator ROBERTS: Let’s make it clear: I did not call the Queen or the Pope a liar. I called them ‘not scientists’. They’re not scientists. But this is what the Greens rely on in the fact that they cannot provide the science. The Greens show no respect for science, no respect for humanity, no respect for the people of this country, no respect for hardworking Australians, and no respect for the farmers that they will gut with this 2050 net zero.
I also remind the Senate that it’s now day 772 since I challenged Senator Larissa Waters and Senator Di Natale in this parliament to a debate on the empirical evidence and also on the corruption of the science. I point out that there is no science that backs this up from the CSIRO, and I’ll have more to say about that next week. There is no science from the Bureau of Meteorology, none from the Chief Scientist—I can tell you a story about the previous Chief Scientist if there is time—none from the Australian Academy of Science and none from the IPCC. In fact, we had the Labor Party’s Kevin Rudd dancing around in 2007 saying 4,000 people in white lab coats endorsed his claim. The reality is that only five academics in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change endorsed the claim of warming, and there’s doubt those five were even scientists.
We’ll hear more rubbish from the Greens, claiming that they have science, but the one thing that they are always consistent on is that they never produce the empirical evidence to justify their claim. They see a picture of a tree frog, a picture of a koala, a picture of a dolphin, and they say, ‘This is the science.’ That’s it; it’s complete rubbish. This has been going on for 11 years, Senator Waters.
Let me point out, Senator Gallagher, that the issue of utmost importance is the integrity of this parliament, the integrity of this country, the integrity of state parliaments, and the integrity of the people of this country and their jobs and their livelihoods. That is of utmost importance to One Nation, and I wish it were of utmost importance to every single person in this Senate, but clearly it’s not.
I wish that my Senators in the United States Congress were as intelligent and courageous as Senator Malcolm Roberts, who insists to be shown empirical evidence for global warming claims. And to stand up for the working people, who are the backbone of any country, to see that they have jobs in manufacturing, mining, and farming. If people actually believe that wind and solar and battery power are going to replace power provided by fossil fuels, they are deluded. And they are deluded because they have been brainwashed. People actually believe everything the government and mainstream media tells them. They simply don’t want to take the time to research it for themselves. Either that or they sell out. They are afraid if they speak out, they’ll lose their jobs and positions. This should not happen in a democracy, but unfortunately it’s happening more and more, and that because our representatives choose to represent special interests and the elite as opposed to the people who elected them.