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GREENS LAUNCH ATTACK ON… Trucks?

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Electric vehicles might be okay for suburb hopping in big cities, but I doubt there is a farm in Australia that would be able to run without any petrol or diesel. The Greens’ calls to ‘rapidly transition to electric vehicles‘ for their net zero economy by 2035 shows they have no clue of the energy requirements in transport, industry and agriculture.

Transcript

Let’s have a bit of fun with some facts. Neither H2O, water, nor CO2, carbon dioxide, is a pollutant. Neither water nor carbon dioxide is a pollutant. The two products from burning hydrocarbon fuels—coal, oil, natural gas—are water and carbon dioxide. We have carbon in every cell of our bodies. The term ‘organic’ refers to something that contains carbon. Earth: the thing that makes our planet so livable, the thing that makes our planet so unique, is the fact that we have more carbon concentrated on our planet than is the case across the universe.

Carbon is essential for life, but the Greens don’t understand that carbon is not carbon dioxide. They tell us that we need to cut our carbon dioxide from the use of coal, oil and natural gas, but then they talk about carbon. Carbon dioxide is a gas. Carbon is a solid in every cell of your body.

So let’s deal with some facts. Let’s have a bit of fun. Carbon dioxide is just 0.04 per cent of Earth’s air. That is 4/100ths of a per cent. Carbon dioxide is scientifically classified as a trace gas, because there’s so little of it. There’s barely a trace of it. Now, some people are going to say, ‘Oh, but cyanide can kill you with just a trace.’ That’s true. That’s a chemical effect. But the claimed effect of carbon dioxide from the Greens of global warming, climate catastrophe and the greatest existential threat that we now face is a physical effect. A trace gas has no physical effect that can be recorded, as I’ll show you in a minute.

Next point: carbon dioxide is non-toxic and not noxious. It’s highly beneficial to and essential for all plants on this planet. Everything green that’s natural relies upon carbon dioxide, and it benefits when carbon dioxide levels are far higher than now. Carbon dioxide is colourless, odourless and tasteless. Nature produces—and this is from the United Nations climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—97 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced annually on our planet. That means that nature produces 32 times more than the entire human production of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide does not discolour the air. Carbon dioxide does not impair the quality of water or soil. None of what I’m talking about is new. I’ve compiled it, but none of it’s new. Carbon dioxide does not create light, create heat, create noise or create radioactivity. It doesn’t distort our senses. It does not degrade the environment, nor impair its usefulness, nor render our environment offensive.

Carbon dioxide doesn’t harm ecosystems and, in fact, is essential for all ecosystems. Carbon dioxide does not harm plants and animals, nor humans. In fact, we put it in our kids’ soft drink. We put it in our champagne. We put it in our beer. We put it in soda water—we carbonate it by putting carbon dioxide in there. It’s essential for all plants and animals. Carbon dioxide does not cause discomfort, instability, wooziness or disorders of any kind. It does not accumulate. It does not upset nature’s balance. It’s essential for nature and life on this planet. It remains in the air for only a short time before nature cycles it into plants, animal tissue, the oceans and natural accumulations. It does not contaminate, apart from nature’s extremely high and concentrated volumes of carbon dioxide from some volcanos and even then it’s only locally and briefly under rare natural conditions when in concentrations and amounts are far higher than anything humans can produce.

Carbon dioxide is not a foreign substance. In the past, on this planet, under the current atmosphere, there have been times when carbon dioxide levels were 130 times higher than the concentration in the earth today. In fact, in the last 200 years, scientists have measured carbon dioxide levels up to 40 per cent higher than they are today. But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, from the UN ignores those measurements, which were taken, in some cases, by Nobel Prize winners—science prize winners. All they do instead is take one reading from one place over the last 70 years.

As you can see from the list I’ve just read, carbon dioxide is not pollution. The Greens are talking about doing an inquiry into carbon, yet they say it’s the carbon dioxide that’s causing this climate change that’s supposedly going on. Let’s look at something else then, as carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.

Let’s have a look at this climate change crisis that the Greens are talking about. I’m unique in this Senate for holding the CSIRO accountable. All of the other senators have not done their jobs. Former Senator Ian Macdonald, from the Senate in 2016, pointed that out to me. He pointed out that no-one in this parliament ever debated the science until I arrived. We still haven’t had the debate, because I’ve challenged the Greens and they have gone without responding to my challenge for a debate more than 125 days. Senator Waters has gone more than 10¼ years without responding to my challenge for a debate. They won’t debate me, because they haven’t got the science. Let’s listen to the people that the Greens rely on for their science.

I have cross-examined the CSIRO. I’ve had three presentations and several sessions at Senate estimates. In their first presentation under my cross-examination the CSIRO admitted that they had never said that carbon dioxide from human activity is a threat or a danger. Never. That means we don’t need any of these policies. Let’s go to the next session we had with the CSIRO. Each of these sessions were 2½ to three hours long. The CSIRO said that today’s temperatures are not unprecedented—that’s referring to the blip that ended back in 1995. We have had stasis of temperatures since then—no warming in the last 26 years. The current temperatures are not unprecedented.

My third point is that the CSIRO admitted that they and other bodies around the world rely, for their predictions, on unvalidated, erroneous computer models. That says two things. Firstly, the models are wrong. They’re erroneous and invalidated, yet they’re using them to make projections. Secondly, it confirms they don’t have the evidence. If they had the evidence, they would have presented it. Instead, they’ve come up with some lame models, which have already failed.

The fourth thing that I will mention about the so-called science is that, when they failed to provide me with the empirical evidence proving that carbon dioxide from human activity affects the climate and needs to be cut, I gave them a very simple test. I asked them to show me anything unprecedented in the earth’s climate in the last 10,000 years. They failed that. I then gave them the absolutely simplest goal of providing me with empirical scientific evidence showing that there has been a statistically significant change to any factor in earth’s climate. They failed that. They can’t even point to a change in climate, because we all know that climate varies quite naturally, most of it cyclically, but sometimes a combination of cycles makes it look like it’s highly random. That’s the point. Not only that, there are scientists whom I’ve communicated with directly, including members who are lead authors for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, such as Dr John Christy. He was a lead author until he left the United Nations climate body because of the corruption. He was disgusted and sickened by it. These and many other scientists have confirmed to me that nowhere in the world has anyone ever presented any empirical scientific evidence showing that carbon dioxide from human activity affects climate and needs to be cut—not NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, not the UK Met Office, not the Bureau of Meteorology, not the CSIRO, not any university, not any academic, not any science paper and not any journal. Check for yourself and tell me if I’m wrong.

The third thing I want to say is that the Greens lunatic policies are not based on science. You’ll notice that Senator Rice, in her comments, never once mentioned any proof of causation. Instead, as substitutes for science, they use emotion, stories, fantasies, dreams and promises. That’s all they have. Policy needs to be based on specific, quantified cause and effect—this much carbon dioxide is growing because of humans, and this much is the impact. That has never been presented anywhere in the world. The CSIRO’s failed three times with me, and it has never been done by anyone. Once we have that measured effect, which no-one has produced so far, then and only then can we shape a policy. Then and only then can we measure the progress along the road of implementing that policy. Without that, it’s fundamentally flawed. Then, if we had the connection, specified and quantified, we can cost it to see the benefits of Senator Rice’s dreams and fantasies versus the impact on our human species of this climate madness that people are going on with. As a result of this madness, both the Liberal-National government and the Labor Party have driven our electricity prices from being the lowest in the world to the highest in the world, all on unicorn farts and rainbows, and nothing else—nothing substantial; claims of carbon pollution.

Then we have this telling factor. The No. 1 factor that drove the rapid improvement in human’s standard of living over the last 170 years was the relentless decrease in the price of energy from 1850 until the mid-nineties. Since then, in Australia, we have gone the other way. We’ve started to increase prices. We’ve now doubled and tripled prices for electricity in some areas and nothing has changed. Coal-fired power stations have become more efficient. Yet we have an increase in price because of the artificial regulations and the artificial impediments on the most productive and efficient source of electricity generation and the subsidies for the dreams of solar and wind, which are inherently high and will never catch up with coal, hydro or nuclear.

We had a relentless decrease in the price of electricity over 170 years until 25 years ago. That relentless decrease in the price of electricity and energy meant an increase in productivity and an increase in wealth. That’s what has led to humans now living lives that are longer, safer, easier, more comfortable and more healthy and having far more choices than anyone could ever have imagined. This Greens lunacy, calling carbon dioxide a ‘carbon’—calling a gas a solid—is driving a decarbonisation that is, in effect, deindustrialisation. Look around us. What will disappear is all the material benefits we’ve had over the last 150 years.

Opinion and emotion are not science. There is no need to have this reference to the committee, because there is no science underpinning the Greens’ call for this reference. We need to get back to the facts, get back to straight logic, stop dreaming, think about the many people who benefit from the wonderful hydrocarbon fuels—natural gas, coal and oil—and look after the people of this planet.

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NATIONAL WATER REFORM: DEAD IN THE WATER

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I spoke on the National water reform 2020: Productivity Commission draft report. There have been way too many desk audits from bureaucrats in the big cities, falsely declaring the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is working just fine.

I ask our rural supporters listening to this speech: when was the last time you saw someone from the Productivity Commission on your farm, asking you about how agriculture really works?

Transcript

In serving the people of Queensland and Australia, tonight I will review the National water reform 2020: Productivity Commission draft report, dated February 2021, a periodic review of the operation of the National Water Initiative. Put simply, this report is a celebration of profit over people. Let’s go through the many failings of this report.

Failing No. 1: the National Water Initiative has resulted in water being taken from family farms that were producing food and fibre for the world. Instead, large corporate agriculture purchased that water. The result has been a huge reduction in the number of family farms growing varied crops that support a wide range of local services and local communities. Commercial agriculture, also known as monoculture, uses large acreage devoted to crops like almonds, grapes or oranges. These properties are highly mechanised, reducing local employment to just a handful. Compared with family farms, corporate agriculture puts a fraction of the wealth back into local communities. The profits from corporate agriculture are moved to capital cities and then to overseas tax havens. There’s nothing in corporate agriculture for everyday Australians and their communities. The Productivity Commission celebrates this increased profit, even though it comes at a massive cost to employment and the health of regional Australia.

Failing No. 2: corporate agriculture uses its ability to run at a loss during the growth phase to purchase water at whatever price it takes. That’s forcing family farms out of the water market and ultimately off the land. This water is then moved downstream through natural constraints like the Barmah Choke in search of cheaper land. Water has to be stuffed through these constraints to meet downstream irrigation requests. The environmental devastation in the Barmah Choke, the Goulburn River and elsewhere in the connected basin is not included in the Productivity Commission’s calculations, yet protecting the national estate matters. The extra profits accruing to the big end of town must be balanced against the environmental damage that the creation of these profits causes. Money might be all that matters to the Productivity Commission. One Nation suggests it goes back and factors environmental damage into its calculations now, not at some point in the future. These natural constraints can’t wait for the next review in 10 years, as suggested on page 13, table 2. By then, the damage will be irreparable.

Failing No. 3: the Productivity Commission failed to quantify the risk to Australia’s economy from shifting agricultural production from diversified family farms to monoculture. For example, one negative movement in the price for almonds, for oranges or for table grapes—and that has happened before—will decimate billions of dollars of agricultural production. The Productivity Commission might not understand risk; One Nation does. Before the National Water Initiative corrupted the water market, Australian agriculture was resilient and diversified; not now.

Failing No.4: the report praises water trading as transparent. This government tried to introduce a transparent water scheme register in 2012, and it failed. Following this sole attempt, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority simply gave up. We do not have a national water register. Water trading is a feeding ground for ruthless water traders and speculators. If the Productivity Commission considers this system to be transparent, the Productivity Commission must be using X-ray glasses. It’s not transparent; it’s broken. Shortly, the Senate will be asked to vote on a bill to create the office of the inspector-general for water compliance. The key responsibility of this office will be to investigate water trading. Since its inception in 2007, the Water Act has provided for a water register on which to record these trades. No such water register has ever been created. The Liberal-National government continues to break its own laws. How does the inspector-general inspect water trading when there is no register of water trades? It doesn’t and it can’t. A complete, transparent, basin-wide water register is 14 years overdue and should be started immediately.

Failing No. 5: water licences, once taken from family farms through unequal economic power, are then being traded into different valleys. The Productivity Commission report applauds this. There’s no analysis in the report of the effect on the land of this changed distribution of agricultural production. Corporate agriculture is buying up marginal farmland cheaply, then miraculously it’s brought to life with water transferred from traditional agricultural areas.

This is not for cropping purposes where the land can rest. These new areas are being devoted to permanent plantings that require continuous watering and continuous run-off. The result is massive salination and environmental damage. This is a time bomb with a short fuse. Just a few years of this irresponsible agriculture due to unrestrained water trading and the issue of salination will be back in the headlines. At that time we’ll ask: how did this happen? Well, it happened because we listened to the Productivity Commission. We valued corporate profits and so-called market efficiency over careful custodianship of the land, custodianship that family farms practised for almost 200 years successfully.

Failing No. 6: custodianship of the land goes back much further than just 200 years, and the Productivity Commission has ‘provided some views on Aboriginal submissions for consideration by the committee’. Meaningless nothing words is all the Productivity Commission has to offer, because Aboriginal use of water can only be quantified by volume, not by utility. Soon after my return to the Senate in 2019, I flew over the whole Murray-Darling Basin and then toured the whole Basin, including the northern Basin, which is northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. In Wilcannia, I spoke with Aboriginal community leaders, Wadi and Eddie Harris. I thank Eddie and Wadi for explaining that their people are a river tribe. At the heart of their culture is their connection to the river, the Darling River. Kids used to spend the day in the river entertaining themselves in a healthy and constructive way. Sometimes there were fish or yabbies for dinner. Elders used to take the young ones and sit in the river and tell Dreamtime stories to encourage respect for themselves and their culture. When mismanagement drains the river, these things are not possible. River tribes can’t move downstream chasing the water; they need water where they are—there.

Wilcannia has the same problem many country towns have; their town weirs are insufficient. Wilcannia’s weir is in the wrong spot and frequently suffers blue-green algae blooms. The New South Wales government has been promising a new weir for 30 years yet still construction has not started. What a metaphor that is for the way in which the Nationals have abandoned their so-called country constituency. That’s why One Nation’s weirs for life program will build new weirs in country areas to increase water storage for human needs. One Nation listens to and engages with rural Australians, with family farms. I ask our rural supporters listening to this speech: when was the last time you saw someone from the Productivity Commission on your farm, asking you about how agriculture really works?

In summary, the Productivity Commission report into water policy does not consider the damage to rural communities. It does not consider environmental damage in a meaningful and responsive way. It does not consider the risk to Australia’s economy and exports of having billions of dollars of production tied to monoculture. It does not consider employment lost from monoculture. It does not consider the final mile of the financial transactions, where the money winds up and who pays tax on the income. It does not consider that water-trading accountability must have a transparent accurate water register. It does not consider custodianship of the land, in particular, salination from corporate agriculture’s permanent plantings in areas that are not suitable for permanent plantings. Finally, it does not consider or factor in the dislocation of Aboriginal river tribes for whom water is the centre of their culture.

There have been way too many desk audits from bureaucrats in the big cities, falsely declaring the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is working just fine. They are audits that cannot quantify environmental damage, damage to rural communities and deprivation of Aboriginal cultural use of water. These things are ignored, and a glowing report card issued—falsely. Meanwhile, the Nationals, the self-proclaimed party of the bush, is busy chasing city votes and saying ‘yes, Sir’ to the Liberals. Rural Australia can’t take this. Rural Australia has had a gutful. If the final report does not widen its calculations to include the full issues, One Nation will move to reject the report.

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Why I support the Acland Mine Extension

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Transcript

[SEN. ROBERTS] Let’s clear up some recent confusion about One Nation’s position on Acland mine continuing to operate and to reinstate three hundred vital local jobs and 2300 indirect regional jobs. We’ve criticised how a third party representative of Acland approached One Nation in the past.

Pauline reminded everyone of this recently and now that Acland has been willing to give us facts and data and the courts have fixed an injustice I’m pleased to support the mine. Affordable energy and export income is good for our country and Acland will be good for the local area.

I support the decision of the Court of Appeal and the four judges. I support Acland’s Stage 3. Let’s have a look at the timeline of the extension of the operating mine. The Bligh govt gazetted the Stage 3 extension in 2007, thirteen years ago. There was some local opposition.

The project then went to the Land Court where the adjudicator, whose official title is Member, rejected the mine’s application in 2016. One Nation accepted that decision. It then went on appeal to the Supreme Court, where Acland was successful. After that it went to on to the Court of Appeal which included the highly respected Justice Sofronoff and two other judges. Acland won that.

The Court of Appeal, our highest court in Queensland, ruled that the decision by the Land Court Member was affected by “apprehended bias” and was unsound. That means one Land Court Member showing apprehended bias ruled against the mine and hundreds of jobs AND four Supreme court Judges overruled him.

The courts have corrected an injustice within their own system.

[INTERVIEWER] What about the current appeal?

[SEN. ROBERTS] This decision is now on appeal to the High Court thanks to the Labor government continuing to give taxpayer money to The Environmental Defenders Office to interrupt development and jobs.

The Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development issued three advices in relation to Acland’s impact on groundwater over 2014, 2015 and 2016. The 2014 and 2015 reports criticised Acland. It’s 2016 report was positive and said that all matters raised had been addressed.

This report won Acland Federal environmental approval.We want to encourage businesses who are told they have a problem and fix it. This is what Acland did and got sign off from an independent, statutory scientific body that the courts said had access to the same information as any objector.

[INTERVIEWER] What about the evidence given in the Land Court?

[SEN. ROBERTS] Several witnesses on both sides gave evidence that had the appearance of being first-hand but was later shown to be based on hearsay. The Land Court Member in the first decision made no criticism of the objectors who gave such evidence yet was highly critical of one of Acland’s witnesses who did exactly the same [1].

The Land Court Member said that Acland had deliberately distorted the facts and eroded the confidence of the court. The Court of Appeal found that there was no basis to impute this [2]. The Court of Appeal found that at a certain point the Land Court Member was, quote: “animated by an extreme and irrational animus against Acland” [3].

Essentially, he the Member, had taken a negative attitude towards Acland. The court of appeal said at times the Member was combative, argumentative and sarcastic to Acland [4]. In the Supreme Court, it was found that there was no evidence to support the claim that Acland had engaged in pressure tactics [5].

The Court of Appeal found there was no basis for the Land Court Member’s conclusion that Acland had sought to portray objectors as bigoted individuals who were only interested in spreading misinformation [6]. The Land Court Member himself concluded that some of the objectors were ready to make assertions without evidence, make submissions that were scandalous and unsupported by any evidence and as to one witness, having an anti-Acland fixation that overflowed into her evidence [6].

The Court of Appeal found that the Land Court Member’s imputation that Acland had tried to hide relevant information in relation to groundwater impacts was “irrational” [7]. While the original Land Court Member’s decision rejected Acland, it’s obvious that was not sound.

[INTERVIEWER] There was a comment that Acland tried to influence a One Nation candidate?

[SEN. ROBERTS] There was an accusation, since retracted, that our local, grassroots candidate had been wined and dined by the mine. None of these are true. I want to acknowledge Alan Jones’ strength of character in correcting and apologising for the assertion about that candidate. I thank him for that.

[INTERVIEWER] What has led to your support for Acland?

[SEN. ROBERTS] I visited Acland 3 weeks ago and worked through my extensive checklist of things I think needed to be considered.

These include: Safety & health; Water underground; water overland; water usage & supply; land use rights; constitution; aboriginal land (none at Acland); rural land quality & use; farm produce type; environment – air quality, vibrations, reclamation, noise, past performance; town services & rates; jobs and local/regional economy; infrastructure impacts; social impact; bank support; owner’s flexibility and consideration of others’ needs; government fiscal responsibility/debt;

Acland meets all of them. In fact, Acland has extensively changed its mining plan at high cost to itself to meet locals’ needs. I listened to a small group of opponents to Acland.I listened to the local community, business owners and farmers who strongly support this project.

Coal is good for this country and Acland will be good for the local area. I support the decision of the Court of Appeal and the four judges. I support Acland.Let’s get government green tape, red tape and blue tape out of the way, and get shovels in the ground and dump trucks on the road.

In a state with $100 billion of debt thanks to the Liberal-Labor duopoly we need export income and affordable domestic energy for our economic recovery and to secure our state’s future.

References

  1. Oakey Coal Action Alliance Inc v New Acland Coal Pty Ltd & Ors [2019] QCA 184, [82].
  2. Ibid [70].
  3. Ibid [73].
  4. Ibid [74].
  5. Ibid [81].
  6. Ibid [85].
  7. Ibid [90].

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COVID-19 Stimulus Package must include water

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The Federal Government’s COVID-19 stimulus packages must address how Australia can be more self-reliant in food production, and calls for a guarantee of water for farmers to plant essential crops this month.

Senator Roberts said, “COVID-19 has changed our world forever as nations like Vietnam ban exporting their home-grown rice to us, and now more than ever, we need government to prioritise food production in Australia because our basic food security is threatened.”

“Nations are now prudently keeping their own food for themselves while stupid government policies mean we are dependent on the importation of food staples that we can grow here in Australia.”

While recent rains across the Murray Darling Basin have been welcomed, farmers need the certainty of a water allocation during the season to have the confidence to plant crops.

“When harvested, not only would this winter crop create a regional monetary stimulus but would also protect us from new food shortages caused by countries’ COVID-19 export restrictions,” stated Senator Roberts.

Absurdly, Australia already relies on importing cereals like wheat and rice and now COVID-19 trade restrictions means even durum wheat used for pasta has become impossible to source.

“It is in Australia’s national interest to prioritise water to farmers to improve our farming productive capacity, that has been damaged by successive Liberal and Labor governments who have given our competitive advantage away to overseas,” added Senator Roberts.

Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian farmers have received zero general security water allocations for irrigation in the last 3 years. The Murray Darling Basin Authority has chosen instead to water forests unnecessarily and send irrigation water out to sea in South Australia.

“I call on our Governments to guarantee the release of 1000gl of water for irrigation, to give our farmers confidence to plant a full winter cereal crop.” “The COVID-19 crisis has given yet another reason to reset the Murray Darling Basin plan, with a focus on sensible environmental practices and on growing and protecting the productive capacity of regional Australia,” declared Senator Roberts.

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