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Labor Proposes to Tax the Shirt off Your Back

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During Question Time, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher twice failed to rule out adding a tax to clothing.

This tax will be passed on to you and I at the checkout, making clothing more expensive and adding to the cost of living. The excuse for this tax is to reduce climate change by reducing the amount of clothing being manufactured. The wealthy wont reduce their purchases for the sake of a tax, yet everyday Australians will have no choice.

This exchange shows the Albanese Government really is considering taxing the shirt on your back, so you buy fewer clothes. Welcome to life under a Labor/Greens/WEF government.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water, Senator Gallagher. Last week the Minister for the Environment and Water, Tania Plibersek MP, stated that Australians were throwing out too many items of clothing, and manufacturers should sign up to a government-backed scheme called Seamless to recycle and not dump used clothes. Clothing can and should be recycled into new clothing and other fibre products. One Australian company operates an upcycling scheme that has dozens of manufacturers, trade linen suppliers, recycling companies and retailers as members, and has taken 100 tonnes of clothing out of landfill. Minister, why is the government reinventing the wheel, creating its own favoured solution and imposing that instead of working with the industry to help them upscale their existing solution?

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Finance, Minister for Women, Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council): I thank Senator Roberts for the question. From what I’ve seen from the minister and the work that she has been doing in space, she has been working with industry and relevant businesses on the development of this policy. That has been critical to the work that she has been doing and it has certainly been under way for some time. I know there was talk before there was a summit and there was talk of a voluntary code, but it is an important part of ensuring that we are protecting the environment from the amount of waste that is going into landfill—and a big contributor of that is clothing. I don’t know, maybe I have misunderstood your question, Senator Roberts, but while there are manufacturers and industries in place that are already doing this, this is about building on that and making it more across-the-board, particularly for those that aren’t doing that, to make sure we are lifting our game in relation to recycling, and preventing the huge amount of clothing material going into landfill. If there are manufacturers or businesses that you think are feeling out of the loop of that consultation I’m sure the Minister for the Environment and Water would be happy to reach out.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a first supplementary question?

Senator ROBERTS: Councils do not currently include clothing on the list of things people can put into a yellow bin. Most suggest giving used clothes to charity shops, very little of which can be resold. Most of that ends up in landfill at the charity shop’s expense. Isn’t the first step here sorting out the system for recycling and processing, then working with councils and retailers to encourage recycling through yellow bins? Is your government putting the cart before the horse?

Senator GALLAGHER: I don’t accept that, Senator Roberts. Where we can, we do work with councils and we work with businesses—we’ll work with anybody who wants to help protect the environment and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. From my reading—and I was not here last week—of the work that Minister Plibersek was doing, it was about encouraging the voluntary cooperation or involvement of businesses in Seamless, in that program, to build it from there. So I would think, yes, you have to work with all of those people, including the councils that run the recycling facilities, whether it be the tips or whether it be what is called the Green Shed here. People donate to Vinnies. There are clothing bins. There are all of those options. Many of those are run by local government. But the Commonwealth government should provide a leadership role and provide that stewardship, where we can, and work together with everybody involved.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, a second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: Minister Plibersek threatened that if the industry did not accept the government’s superfluous Seamless then a 4 cent waste levy should be imposed on clothing manufacturers. This proposal will increase the cost of clothing at the checkouts. Minister, will you, right now, rule out taxing clothing? 

Senator GALLAGHER: Minister Plibersek has been working with the industry to reduce the amount of waste. Clothes are cheaper than they have ever been—this is part of the problem. Anyone with teenagers or anyone who goes on some of these websites knows that you can replace your whole wardrobe, very cost-efficiently, because of the nature of people’s buying habits and the ability to get clothes from overseas. We are seeing that the average Australian sends almost 10 kilos of clothing waste to landfill every year. So it is a big problem, and it’s a problem that we need to work across industry to fix. 

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

Senator ROBERTS: A point of order on relevance: I asked, ‘Will the minister now rule out taxing clothing?’ 

The PRESIDENT: The minister is being relevant to your question, Senator Roberts. 

Senator GALLAGHER: I am explaining what the government is doing. You might want to take it somewhere else, which we have no plans to do. We are talking about what we are doing now with Seamless, which is: working with industry to reduce the amount of clothing going to landfill. And we will work with anybody who wants to work with us on that.

Following Question Time, I moved to take note of the Minister’s response to my questions.

When did it become appropriate for the government to decide how much clothing you own? Minister Tania Plibersek is repeating World Economic Forum rhetoric designed to widen the gulf between the haves and the have nots. It’s terrifying that Minister Plibersek should recycle WEF talking points to the Australian public.

The real failure however is that many people aren’t aware that clothes can be recycled. Councils and retail stores don’t offer recycling options, and although the fashion industry has started recycling facilities in Sydney and Melbourne, more is needed.

Instead of taxing clothing, how about working with the industry to expand capability and encourage the clothing industry to tag items for recycling instead of throwing them out. The government could do with ignoring the WEF and its CCP-style rules and instead think for itself on behalf of Australians not globalists. How about less stick and more common sense?

Transcript

I move: 

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment and Water (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the government’s proposed tax on clothing. 

We are told the proposed tax on clothing is to encourage recycling. The proposal from the Minister for the Environment and Water was floated over the weekend. This was not some random thought bubble. The World Economic Forum and its acolytes have been saying for years that everyday citizens are buying too much clothing. Minister Plibersek repeated those World Economic Forum talking points in the same press conference. This begs the questions: What’s the correct amount of clothing a person can own? Who decides how much clothing we each get to own? Is the intent to remove colour and style options so that a few approved uniforms are all we need? Didn’t China try that already? 

This proposal sits alongside the World Economic Forum policy that I spoke to last sitting, calling on people to wear clothing for a week and jeans for a month before washing them. It’s true that laundering clothing does wear it out. To get by with fewer items of clothing, one has to wash them less often. At least they thought this through. 

It’s terrifying that a minister of the Crown would repeat World Economic Forum talking points designed to ensure that everyday Australians have less. The failure here, though, is this: the reason we throw out so much clothing is that Australians don’t know clothing can be recycled. Councils don’t have clothing on the lists of things you can put in a yellow bin. Retailers don’t have recycling bins in stores, and they don’t attach a tag to a garment saying, ‘You can recycle the product in a yellow bin.’ The industry already has recycling facilities in Sydney and Melbourne, which is a good start. 

Here’s an idea: instead of taxing clothing to create a new recycling system, as the Labor Party is considering, how about working with the industry to expand capability and then encourage the public to recycle clothing instead of throwing it out? This government needs to use less stick and more commonsense. It needs to use less control and do more listening and consulting. 

Question agreed to. 

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Rally in Canberra Against Reckless Renewables

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A huge response for the rally on Parliament House against reckless renewables on Tuesday, 6 February 2024.

Wind and solar installations are environmental vandals and will never be able to provide the baseload power we need to function competitively as a country.

It’s time to end the wealth transfer to climate billionaires like Simon Holmes a Court, Twiggy Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes.

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Wind Scam Unravels as Projects Fail

The economic and environmental cost of wind generated power is becoming clearer to investors as they back away from more projects, both overseas, on Australian soil and off-shore.

Following on from my speech last week drawing attention to financial losses in the wind energy scam, I speak about what’s behind these unravelling, expensive Net Zero operations.

It’s time to look again at clean coal.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, it has been only a few weeks since my last speech drawing attention to financial losses and failures in the wind energy scam. Today, we have more. Europe’s largest onshore wind turbine installation, Markbygden, has filed for bankruptcy protection. If completed, it would have consisted of 1,101 wind turbines and 750 kilometres of access roads. Escalating construction costs meant the project can no longer bid electricity into the grid at a price the grid operator can afford.

As I explained last week, there are not enough mines to mine the materials, not enough steel mills to make the steel nor enough special-purpose ships to bring them across the world. This is just economic cost. The environmental cost no longer factors into the equation. As an example, the Clarke Creek Wind Farm west of Rockhampton hit the news in the last two weeks, when their environmental impact study caused real environmentalists, like One Nation, outrage. The environmental impact statement admitted that the most severe impact of the proposal will be on the skulls of any koalas beaten to death for trespassing on the project’s land.

Offshore wind in Australia has had a bad week, too, with BlueFloat withdrawing their plans for offshore wind in the Shoalhaven area of New South Wales. BlueFloat’s proposal was for a 359 square kilometre area with 105 turbines located 14 to 30 kilometres of the Illawarra coastline. Each turbine would have a diameter of 275 metres and feed into three offshore substations. What an insane idea. One strong storm, and the whole lot winds up on the beach. Saltwater corrosion repair now accounts for 30 per cent of the levelised cost of electricity from offshore wind turbines. Offshore wind is unprofitable from the perspective of construction and maintenance costs.

It’s time to have another look at clean coal before the green movement has us all sitting in the dark with a fridge full of inedible, spoiled food.

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No Basis for Extreme Weather Predictions

The Australian Department of Treasury website states that extreme weather events are expected to occur with increased frequency and severity. I asked in the recent senate estimates what sources Treasury had based this prediction. I was informed that it was consistent with the government-stated position on climate change and climate action.

Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report on the Science says there have been no detectable increase in the number of natural disasters. It summarises the available scientific evidence on the signal of natural disasters and finds no change in signals for weather-related events, including river flood, rain in terms of heavy precipitation, landslide, drought, fire, wind speed, tropical cyclone, relative, sea level, coastal flood and marine heat wave.

The Minister was not prepared to take my question on notice regarding their source of empirical scientific data.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: The next one is fairly straightforward. A statement on the Treasury website states that ‘Extreme weather events are also expected to occur with increased severity and frequency’. On what are you basing that statement?

Ms Kelley: We worked with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the AOFM in terms of the statement, and the statement is consistent with the government’s stated position on climate change and climate action. The statement uses publicly available information from the 2023-24 budget and the Annual Climate Change Statement.

Senator ROBERTS: I’m sure it’s consistent with lots of things, because you just told me where the sources of it are. I’ll go back to the quote: ‘Extreme weather events are also expected to occur with increased frequency and severity’. I’ll direct you to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report on the science, chapter 12, table 12.12. That summarises the available scientific evidence on the signal of natural disasters. I’ll run through some of the types of disasters where the United Nations says there’s been no detectable increase in the number of natural disasters: frost; river flood; rain, measured in terms of heavy precipitation or mean precipitation; landslide; drought; fire weather; wind speed; windstorm; tropical cyclone; dust storm; heavy snowfall; hail; relative sea level; coastal flood; and marine heatwave. There’s been no change in signal for any of these events according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. So I’m wondering what type of weather event this increased risk you are claiming is going to come from. What type of natural disaster are you talking about?

Ms Kelley: That’s probably not my area within the department, so—

Senator ROBERTS: Do you think I should take it up with the department that you copied your policy from?

Ms Kelley: Yes, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water is probably the most appropriate department.

Senator ROBERTS: So you’ve taken their material and just placed it on your website? You’ve trusted them.

Ms Kelley: We have been wholly consistent with government policy in terms of the statement. It’s informed by a range of different pieces of evidence.

Senator ROBERTS: Great. Thank you very much.

Senator Gallagher: Senator Roberts, I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this.

Senator ROBERTS: No, we don’t have to agree to disagree. We just have to get the data. Perhaps you could take it on notice, Minister, to get me that data.

CHAIR: Thank you very much—

Ms Kelley: Sorry, could I just add to the question about—

Senator ROBERTS: I wouldn’t be winking about it, Senator Gallagher.

Senator Gallagher: Eh?

Senator ROBERTS: I wouldn’t be winking about it.

Senator Gallagher: No, well, this comes up a lot—

Senator ROBERTS: This is costing this country trillions. This is costing our country trillions of dollars.

Senator Gallagher: I think, fundamentally, we have a different—

Senator ROBERTS: Mine’s informed by the data.

Senator Gallagher: You strongly object to climate science. We don’t.

Senator ROBERTS: I don’t reject it. That’s a false statement. I don’t reject the climate science; I follow the climate science.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, thank you. Ms Kelley would like to make a final remark.

Ms Kelley: I just want to answer your question about the costs. I’ve got some clarification. We’ve borne our own costs, and Ms O’Donnell is bearing hers. There are no other decisions to be made about costs.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you very much. I just make the point that the minister is not willing to provide me with a source for that advice to the government. You’re a senior member of the government.

Senator Gallagher: I think at a number of estimates hearings, on a number of questions on notice, that information has been provided, Senator Roberts. If there’s anything further we can provide, I’m happy to add—

Senator ROBERTS: Senator Gallagher, I need to correct you. The logical scientific points, with the empirical scientific data, have never been provided to me by anyone.

CHAIR: Thank you. Thank you, Minister. Senator Roberts, I’m just going to make the decision that there’s a repetition to your line of questioning. Thank you very much for your brevity in general.

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CSIRO’s GenCost is Just a Wind and Solar Fairy-tale!

Politicians keep telling Australia that “wind and solar are the cheapest form of energy” while they force Net-Zero down our throats. As proof, they point to a CSIRO document called GenCost, which supposedly estimates the cost of different types of electricity. Yet, it doesn’t estimate the costs of electricity today.

GenCost uses a whole bunch of assumptions that are favorable to wind and solar to claim they will be the cheapest… in 2030. GenCost doesn’t even include the cost of transmission, one of the largest expenses for wind and solar. Huge transmission costs are the reason wind and solar projects are sitting stranded in the outback connected to nothing. This is the same CSIRO that seemingly knows nothing about Snowy 2.0, which has blown out from $2 billion to over $20 billion for the project and associated infrastructure. They forecast the cost of pumped hydro storage will average less than a quarter of the current estimates for Snowy, the pumped hydro that’s actually being built.

To say I don’t trust CSIRO have the right answers on the actual cost of “renewables” is an understatement. The claim that wind and solar are the cheapest is simply a lie that ignores storage, transmission and intermittency. GenCost is just a fairy tale about the future, not an impartial analysis of what wind and solar costs today.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Welcome, Professor Hilton. I will put some questions on notice about carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from human production. I would like to question the expert spokesman on GenCost.

Prof. Hilton: We are delighted you are asking questions about GenCost. One of the greatest challenges facing Australia is the transition of our energy sector. I am proud of the contribution that the GenCost report makes in this area. The report has been generated annually since 2018. It has evolved over time to take account of the changing technology landscape and the availability of new data. I anticipate that the report will continue to evolve.

Senator ROBERTS: I want to get to the heart of some of the issues that I see with GenCost. What was the cost first budgeted for pumped hydro energy storage Snowy 2?

Mr Graham: I might take that on notice. I am aware of the recent update to the cost, but I don’t have the original figure on me.

Senator ROBERTS: The original figure was $2 billion. What is it currently budgeted at?

Mr Graham: It is in the order of $12 billion.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s correct. How long are the tunnels for it?

Mr Graham: I don’t have that on hand.

Senator ROBERTS: It is 27 kilometres. How much of the tunnel have they bored so far in the last year, or just over a year?

Mr Graham: I am not tracking that measurement.

Senator ROBERTS: It is 150 metres. It has been bogged for about a year. When was it initially scheduled for completion?

Mr Graham: I don’t have that on me.

Senator ROBERTS: It was 2021. What has that blown out to now?

Mr Graham: Around 2029.

Senator ROBERTS: Earlier; 2028.

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, the official is indicating to you that he is happy to accommodate your line of questioning. However, detailed questions about the project details for Snowy Hydro are best dealt with in the environment estimates. I know you addressed these kinds of questions to Mr Barnes, the CEO of Snowy. You might direct questions to CSIRO which they can assist with. You mentioned your interest in the GenCost report— you might get better answers about that from the official.

Senator ROBERTS: Sure. They are now estimating the cost of the transmission infrastructure—which was left out of the original package—at $10 billion for it to be connected to the grid and be useful. That now makes it up to $22 billion for 2,200 megawatts of pumped hydro energy storage, which is $10 million per megawatt, or $10,000 per kilowatt. We won’t even get into the fact that it is only forecast to put out that capacity for an average of 26 minutes a day. What is the cost per kilowatt of pumped hydro you provided in GenCost?

Mr Graham: The Snowy 2.0 project is incredibly unique. It was approximately 170 hours duration for 2 gigawatts originally, but it is higher than that now: 2.2 to 2.5.

Senator ROBERTS: It is 2.2.

Mr Graham: No other project on the books in Australia that we are looking at has that type of profile. In GenCost we report pumped hydro projects more in the order of 12 to 48 hours, that kind of duration, which is
nowhere near the 170 hours for Snowy 2.0.

Senator ROBERTS: What is your capacity?

Mr Graham: We have a table in GenCost with a series of figures on the cost of pumped hydro. I’ll get the exact data for you.

Senator McAllister: Are you asking what role Mr Graham performs—

Senator ROBERTS: No: what is the cost per kilowatt-hour of pumped hydro you have provided in GenCost?

Mr Graham: I didn’t bring that table with me. I’ll have to get back to you with that on notice. That cost isn’t related to Snowy 2.0. It is related to other projects, which are much smaller.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s what I understand. In GenCost, what would it be, roughly? I won’t hold you to it.

Mr Graham: It is of the order of $2,500 a kilowatt.

Senator ROBERTS: Snowy 2, which is a real-life project that is not even finished yet, is $10,000. GenCost is built on modelling based on assumptions projected out to the future; is that correct, broadly?

Mr Graham: That’s correct.

Senator ROBERTS: We don’t know from GenCost what it would cost to replace our coal-fired fleet with solar and wind today, and all the transmission lines and back-up storage. How useful is GenCost?

Mr Graham: We made the decision to focus GenCost on new-build generation and storage and some hydrogen technologies. There are other processes for, and reports that deal with, transmission. We don’t deal with
transmission. GenCost is designed for people to calculate the cost of building and replacing existing generation. But you can’t go to GenCost necessarily to look at issues around transmission.

Senator ROBERTS: Some of your opponents argue that GenCost is detached from reality. If we look at Snowy 2—I am not implying that you have anything to do with Snowy 2—right from the start, Minister, the
decision to build Snowy 2 was made without a cost-benefit analysis, and with a heavily redacted business case that could not be scrutinised. You have acknowledged that you are basically building models based on
assumptions and projecting them into the future. I don’t think the government has anything on what is going on right now. Is that right, Minister?

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, I might get the official to revisit the evidence he has just provided about the way the calculations are developed for understanding the cost of hydro because I don’t think it is as you have described.

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, we have major solar and wind installations, industrial complexes, which are not connected to the grid. This is the level of planning that is going on at state and federal. They are not connected but they have been paid for, and I think that they are earning revenue. That is the reality.

Senator McAllister: I am not aware of the particular projects you are referring to, but they are certainly not things this agency can assist you with.

Senator ROBERTS: My question to you is: something that is projected into the future based on models and assumptions now is divorced from reality, and we need to know the cost now. Why are we embarking on this
journey with so much uncertainty?

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, you are asking me about energy policy. We have talked about it earlier in the week. We consistently have advice from a very wide range of sources—

Senator ROBERTS: Can you name some of them?

Senator McAllister: about firmed renewables being the lowest cost form of new energy in the Australian context. When AEMO looks at what is required to replace all of thermal generation that is coming to the end of its life over the next decade, they try to model—because they need to—the transmission that will optimally connect the optimal configuration of new generation. That AEMO work is not principally led by CSIRO. CSIRO have a capacity to contribute; I think the official can speak to the ways they do. I don’t wish to frustrate your efforts to have this discussion, but it is not in this portfolio.

Senator ROBERTS: Thanks, Minister. Thank you, Chair.

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Cheaper Electricity Bills Anyone?

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The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) assures me that as Australia has very good sunshine and solar energy is the cheapest form of energy on the planet, we can expect to have cheap electricity. That’s nonsense because they don’t take into account all of the extra costs of firming, storage, extra transmission lines and general unreliability. Any Australian who looks at their electricity bill knows solar isn’t cheaper.

I was even more surprised to learn about the agency’s support of solar in renewable iron and steel manufacturing on a massive scale. The idea of such energy intensive industrial process being powered by cheap solar, which is currently too expensive and unreliable for Australian households, is pipe dream stuff.

This government is driving Australia off the cliff and is in the drivers seat essentially saying – “It’s not my job to think about the cliff, I’m just driving the car.” The idea of a net zero future with wind and solar providing base-load power and creating “green steel” is not real.

The net zero pipe dream is a nation killing fantasy that is already hurting the regions, ruining small business and driving up the cost-of-living all over Australia.

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Net Zero Wind Turbine Destruction Unmasked

We are witnessing permanent environmental vandalism under Labor.

I spoke today on the Green’s motion to increase the rate at which net zero policies are turning our natural environment into wind and solar industrial landscapes.

A year after Kaban wind turbines turned pristine Australian bushland into an industrial landscape, the heavy machinery is still crushing the rock that was bulldozed and blasted off the top of mountains in the Atherton Tablelands to make way for wind turbines. Rock that is releasing arsenic into the environment with unknown consequences.

Koala habitat has been taken, and while the Greens talk frequently about saving the koalas, they pick and choose which koalas they care about.

This vandalism must stop.

At the end of a mining operation, the mine can be filled in and remediated. In fact, legal contracts require it. Not so with the destruction created by wind and solar. There is no replacing a mountain top after it has been blasted off and bulldozed to make way for wind turbines.

Transcript

One Nation joins Senator McKim in mourning the current environmental damage as a casualty of destructive net zero climate policy. We do, though, disagree on who’s responsible. As we speak today, heavy machinery using diesel engines are still crushing the rock that was bulldozed and blasted off the top of mountains in the Atherton Tablelands to make way for wind turbines. A year after Kaban, when turbines turned pristine Australian landscape into an industrial landscape, the crushers are still going. There was that much destruction. That act of environmental vandalism disturbed arsenic in the rock, released into the environment with an unknown cost to our flora and fauna and to humans.  

Koala habitat has been taken. While the Greens talk frequently about saving the koalas, they pick and choose which koalas they care about. The Morrison government refused the Lotus Creek wind installation because of the amount of koala habitat the industrial landscape would remove. The Albanese Labor government reversed the decision and approved the creation of another industrial landscape holding 55 turbines. Native habitat protecting biodiversity included the masked owl, the magnificent broodfrog, the sarus crane, the red goshawk, the northern greater glider and the spectacled flying fox—and the devastation is just starting. Mount Fox will have 193 of these machines—these destructive wind turbines; Chalumbin, 94; Windy Hill, 20; High Road, 20; and Mount Emerald, 37. This is in just 300 kilometres of pristine North Queensland mountain range. 

At the end of mining, a mine can be filled in and remediated. Chopping the top off beautiful mountains and cutting 70-metre-wide roads into a mountainside to bring in the wind turbines on diesel powered trucks is permanent environmental vandalism. 

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Humans Not Responsible for Increases in CO2

I spoke briefly in the Senate about climate science. The data really does speak for itself.

Only 12% of the increase in CO2 between 1750 and 2018 was man-made.

That’s much too low to be the cause of any claimed global warming.

Nature controls carbon dioxide levels, not humans.

Transcript

I want to talk briefly about climate science, because we’ve seen COVID science has been smashed. Earlier today, I promised to talk tonight on why the climate change cult of doom and their rebranding to ‘climate boiling’ is scientific nonsense. Let me do that now using my favourite thing, empirical scientific data, by referencing a peer reviewed paper titled ‘World atmospheric CO2, its 14C specific activity, non-fossil component, anthropogenic fossil component, and emissions (1750-2018)’, published in Health Physics journal in February 2022. It’s a long title, but it saves the phone calls from fact-checkers. This paper used caesium-14, or 14C, to analyse carbon dioxide in the atmosphere across the period from 1750 to 2018: 

After 1750 and the onset of the industrial revolution, the anthropogenic fossil component and the non-fossil component in the total atmospheric CO2 concentration, C(t), began to increase. Despite the lack of knowledge of these two components, claims that all or most of the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been due to the anthropogenic fossil component have continued since they began in 1960 with “Keeling Curve: Increase in CO2 from burning fossil fuel.” … The specific activity of 14C in the atmosphere gets reduced by a dilution effect when fossil CO2, which is devoid of 14C, enters the atmosphere. We have used the results of this effect to quantify the two components. … These results negate claims that the increase in C(t) since 1800 has been dominated by the increase of the anthropogenic fossil component. We determined that in 2018, atmospheric anthropogenic fossil CO2 represented 23% of the total emissions since 1750 with the remaining 77% in the exchange reservoirs. Our results show that the percentage of the total CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels from 1750 to 2018 increased from 0% in 1750 to 12% in 2018, much too low to be the cause of global warming. 

The fundamental basis of the theory of anthropogenic global warming has been found by analysis of atmospheric gases to be completely wrong.

Nature, as I’ve said many times, controls carbon dioxide levels.

Correction: The speech was written referencing the type of dating as caesium-14. The correct word is carbon-14.

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Australia Slow to Hear the Net-Zero Wake Up Call

We’re the world’s most energy rich country yet we have some of the highest electricity prices. We export our energy resources while skyrocketing power bills and taxes ensure the flow of money from everyday Australians’ pockets to the carpet-bagging predatory billionaires behind the net-zero fraud.

Climate scammers fear the net-zero tide is turning. The public is waking up to this economic suicide and seeing the climate agenda for what it is – a corrupt globalist ideology and wealth transfer scheme.

The latest unhinged meltdown from the Greens has nothing at all to do with rising temperatures. It has everything to do with fear of political irrelevancy.

I was pleased to hear the Liberals and Nationals speak supportively three times on our motion, but disappointed that not one member of those parties were in the senate chamber for the vote.

The message is clear and the backlash globally is now growing: Australia must cancel net-zero or the cost will be ruinous.

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Snowy 2.0 continues to throw good money after bad

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I questioned the Snowy Hydro Authority on the Snowy 2.0 project at Senate Estimates.

Snowy 2.0 is a ‘big battery’ that pumps water from the Talbingo Reservoir up to the Tantangara Reservoir during the day when there is excess wind and solar electricity, then lets the water down during the evening peak to generate electricity when the sun isn’t shining and wind isn’t blowing.

If this sounds like we are planning on generating electricity twice to use it once, that is exactly what pumped hydro does.

The original cost of $2 billion is now out to $5.9 billion and likely to go over $10 billion. In addition, the transmission lines to bring the power into the grid will gouge out national parks and farmland, and cost another $10 billion. And their main boring machine has been bogged for more than a year.

I asked if this project is worth continuing.

The lack of detail around how much the power will cost electricity customers is frightening.

Listen to the answers. It sounds like the Snowy Authority is planning to profiteer by having the only power available when solar and wind are not generating enough power.

All I can say is be worried – this Government is actively planning massive increases in power bills.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing again today. Florence is now acknowledged to be bogged. When will it be unbogged?

Mr Barnes: I expect in weeks, not months. As soon as the slurry plant is operating, we’ll push forward, obviously in close consultation with our colleagues at DPIE and Parks, but we expect it to be relatively soon.

Senator Roberts: I empathise with you, having managed underground projects, some quite large—not as large as this one. There is a lot of uncertainty, and it’s hard telling people who are looking on how to think about this. It’s very difficult to describe.

Mr Barnes: You’ve got to see it to believe it.

Senator Roberts: That’s right. We’ve got journalists—admittedly journalists—now saying it’s time to cut our losses on Snowy 2.0. If the project is completed and all the high-voltage transmission lines are built across farmyards and national parks, there must be a calculation that takes the capital cost of the project as a whole and divides that by the life of the project to get a figure for how much the annual amortisation charge for the capital costs will be. Do you have the latest projection, please?

Mr Barnes: There was quite a lot in your question. Obviously we haven’t got an updated cost here, and we’ll provide that in months. We don’t have the cost of transmission, so I wouldn’t be able to provide that. I fully expect, through our corporate plan process, we’ll assess the returns from Snowy 2.0, and, if anything, the commercial case for it has got stronger since FID.

Senator Roberts: Sorry?

Mr Barnes: The commercial case for it has gotten stronger since the financial investment decision.

Senator Roberts: There were many factors that drove that commercial decision in the first place. Well, it wasn’t commercial, from what we understand, because there was no cost-benefit analysis, and the business case was redacted heavily, under Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership. This annual amortisation charge, which you can’t provide, is combined with annual costs like labour and maintenance to calculate what the real cost per megawatt hour will be once the project starts. You wouldn’t have the projected cost per megawatt hour either then?

Mr Barnes: That’s correct, but to think about Snowy 2.0 in megawatt hours is perhaps not the right way to think about it.

Senator Roberts: It’s a battery.

Mr Barnes: Yes, but it’s the provision of dispatchable demand over very long storage duration that allows lots of variable renewable electricity to be delivered. So we look at the business case in a much more fulsome way across the whole Snowy business. For example, over the past few years, we’ve procured 1,500 megawatts of solar and wind PPAs to enable the transition, which assets like Snowy 2.0 support. I think you’ve got to look at a whole-of-business business case, and the simple amortisation plus labour is, perhaps, too simplistic a way to consider the business case.

Senator Roberts: Now you’ve got me really worried. It’s not your responsibility with the solar and wind, but now I’m terrified of it. Your website lists the levelised cost of storage at between $25 and $35 per megawatt hour. On 340,000 megawatt hours each year, this suggests an annual cost of $11 million, including operating costs, maintenance, capital costs and the cost of buying the electricity to pump the water uphill. Is the $25 to $35 figure still accurate and, if not, what is the new figure?

Mr Barnes: I’ve not got a calculator that capable in my head, but I think there might be a multiplying factor out on those numbers. The levelised cost of storage I think we have on our website is sourced from international studies and our view of levelised cost of storage. I don’t have the updated figure in my head at the moment.

Senator Roberts: Our staff team did some calculations. Now, admittedly, we don’t have all the costs, but it just seems ridiculously low. When we pile on these extra costs of the delay, we’re wondering about what will happen.

Mr Barnes: Just to be clear, the levelised cost of storage is what one would add to variable renewable electricity to provide a firm product. Also, the 340,000 megawatt hours of storage is not deployed over a year. It will be deployed multiple times through the year, depending on the market dynamics.

Senator Roberts: It seems to us that the capital cost is becoming a huge stumbling block. Even if you take just the cost of the project, at $6 billion—and there are serious doubts about that now—and amortise those across 50 years, the annual capital charge will be $120 million, and double that if you add the pole and the wires. That puts the cost of your electricity at over $700 per megawatt per hour, including the poles and wires. The current spot price for last weekend—admittedly the weekend was cold down here—for last weekend was $150 per megawatt hour. Is there something we’re missing?

Mr Barnes: We’ll certainly do a full financial review of the project when the increased costs are known. But I think you’re mischaracterising the nature of the asset in that it isn’t an energy provider. It’s an insurance provider for when the wind isn’t blowing, the sun isn’t shining or there is plant failure elsewhere. So we don’t sell it as a baseload energy price, which is what you’re referencing.

Senator Roberts: Hasn’t it been touted as a peak period source of electricity?

Mr Barnes: The two major sources of revenue will be the difference between the price we pump the water up to Tantangara, which will soak up demand from solar and wind when it’s not required, and the price at which we sell it in peak periods when solar and wind aren’t available or other plants are not available. So it’s an asset about being there when everything else isn’t. It isn’t sold on an energy basis, which are the reference prices you’re quoting.

Senator Roberts: Okay. But the projected cost must be the single most important KPI of this project.

Mr Barnes: Cost and schedule are my most important KPIs. The reason we came out with the schedule is that there are many stakeholders interested in the schedule, and we’ll work through the cost and associated business plans around that.

Senator Roberts: There seems to be a real risk, though. I acknowledge your point that we can’t just charge per kilowatt hour—or we can’t just recognise a per kilowatt hour figure. But there seems to be the real possibility that the price of electricity generated, recovered and stored will be massive, even without government subsidies coming in year after year.

Ms Barnes: I think that’s for others to comment on. My focus is on getting the project at schedule and cost and making a business case for it, which I think is very strong. There are many other factors which will determine the price of electricity.

Senator Roberts: Minister, can you provide on notice the current projected cost per megawatt hour of electricity generated by Snowy 2.0 on the first year of operation, please?

Senator McAllister: Senator, I will take that on notice. I would also direct you to the evidence given to you already by Mr Barnes in relation both to the variability in the electricity market that Snowy will participate in but also—

Senator Roberts: A lot of variability means uncertainty.

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, I think that Mr Barnes has given an indication that he thinks it’s a strong business case and they’re presently working through it. I have taken your question on notice.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. This had nothing to do with your government, but right from the start of this project, Malcolm Turnbull’s government refused access to the cost-benefit analysis and heavily redacted the business case. There have been lots of questions about this project right from the start and now there are even more questions—and I don’t blame Mr Barnes for that.

Mr Barnes: My interest is running a commercially viable and efficient company, and that’s what I’ve done all of my career. The reason I joined Snowy was to get the opportunity to deliver Snowy 2, because I think it’s an incredibly important asset to the energy transition. I fully expect it to be very commercial. We’re trying to deal with the hardest part of the transition, which is providing deep storage to enable more renewables. So I expect it to be a very commercial business.

Senator Roberts: Can I confirm media reports that Snowy Hydro was found in a third independent audit last year to be noncompliant on environmental plans in 15 instances and that you have at last 10 management plans overdue?

Mr Barnes: I think, Senator, that you’re maybe referring to a National Parks Association report that was released last Thursday, without consultation with Snowy Hydro. We are currently operating under all of our construction approvals. So there are no breaches there. The plans and requirements as a result of the construction and operation of Snowy 2 obviously changed in nature over time. There are some that are relevant to construction, and we’re fully compliant with those. There are some that are relevant to operation and some that are relevant to rehabilitation. We work closely with all of the agencies to make sure that they’re reviewed and consulted on in every thorough way. I think there’s been a misunderstanding of some of the dates on various websites. So I have reached out to the National Parks Association to help them understand how it operates.

Senator Roberts: So it’s a misunderstanding that 10 of the 16 management plans for multibillion-dollar pumped hydro projects are overdue by 31 months, as reported in the media, citing the National Parks Association? So you think they’ve got it wrong somewhere?

Mr Barnes: The plans that are being referred to are prepared by Snowy and they are reviewed by various agencies. In consultation with the agencies, some of the dates that were originally envisaged are not being met and, therefore, are phases of the project which are way into the future. One of the things that may be useful for us to do is to work with the various agencies to make that understanding of how this process works. I would have happily taken the National Parks Association through that process.

Senator Roberts: Okay; so they jumped the gun?

Mr Barnes: They didn’t consult with Snowy Hydro before releasing it to the media.

Senator Roberts: Can I go to your opening statement? You recently announced a one- to two-year delay.  That’s a heck of a range, 100 per cent—from minimum to major.

Mr Barnes: It’s a project that’s being constructed over more than one to two years. It’s been in construction a few years. I think it was appropriate to give a range until we do more work.

Senator Roberts: I appreciate your honesty. I am not questioning your honesty—and I appreciate that you have given us that figure. But, for the project, that’s a pretty big number. What was the original planned project duration?

Mr Barnes: It was before my time. Perhaps we’ll come back to you. We gave a notice to proceed in mid-2020 and power was expected in 2025-26.

Mr Whitby: First power was for 1 July 2025, from a notice to proceed from August 2020. So five years was the original—

Senator Roberts: So the delay is 20 per cent to 40 per cent?

Mr Barnes: That would be the simple maths.

Chair: Senator Roberts, I’ll get you to wind it up and share the call, if that’s okay?

Senator Roberts: Okay. You mentioned in your statement the combination of four factors. What are the four factors? I’ve been through your statement and I couldn’t see them.

Mr Barnes: In our advice to ministers and in our media release we identified the effects of COVID and bushfires on the mobilisation of the project, the effect of many global factors on the availability of skilled labour and also the costs of materials. There’s a lot of steel and concrete in the project. We’ve found that some elements of the design—as we’ve gone through the process of design—are, in some cases, more costly to complete. And finally, the site conditions, of which the Florence ground conditions are the most impactful, also includes things like additional eroding. They’re the four factors.

Senator Roberts: Good luck getting that machine out.

Mr Barnes: Thanks.

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