For over 15 years, I have warned that the climate scam is a direct assault on the Australian way of life.
And it’s not just our hip pockets being hit — it’s our humanity.
Labor and Chris Bowen are selling you a “renewable revolution,” yet they aren’t telling you who’s paying the real price.
While Australian families struggle with soaring power bills, children in the Congo are forced into medieval conditions, digging for the minerals that fuel our “green” future.
Women are working in toxic, open-cut mines controlled by the Chinese Communist Party – all so we can pretend we’re “saving the planet.”
Our environment is being destroyed, our wildlife killed off, our economy smashed – and everyday Australians are getting poorer.
It’s not a revolution. It’s a scam!
Note: The data for 2026 confirms that our energy security has been sold off to foreign interests, with the vast majority of these large-scale wind and solar projects owned by overseas entities.
We need to stop this madness and put Australian families and human decency above the “renewable at all costs” cult. There is nothing virtuous about “renewable” energy.
The latest globalist circus: UN COP30 in Belem, Brazil was a monumental failure and a masterclass in elite hypocrisy. While 55,000 “carpetbaggers” and technocrats gathered to lecture us on our carbon footprint, they were busy carving a highway through the heart of the Amazon rainforest just to improve access to their venue. 30,000 trees gone, destroying 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide sequestration, all while sipping champagne on luxury cruise ships floating in a harbor filled with raw sewage.
The hypocrisy is staggering. They parked 250 private jets at local airports and then had the gall to discuss taxing your airline flights.
The UN KNOWS the 1.5° target is a fantasy. The truth is coming out: most countries know that Net Zero will bring economic ruin and that carbon dioxide is essential for human prosperity.
Australia is already at “net zero”. Our forests absorb more CO2 than we produce. To chase “green” energy, the government is blowing up mountaintops for wind turbines and cutting through national parks for transmission lines. And Ministers like Chris Bowen are being rewarded with UN roles for facilitating the transfer of Australian wealth into the pockets of billionaire crony capitalists and foreign interests.
This isn’t just about the weather; it’s about control. The “Globalist Uniparty” (Labor, Liberal, Greens, and Teals) is ushering in a future where you are herded into 38-storey “human filing cabinets” in 15-minute cities.
They want to track your spending and deny transactions for meat, travel, or air conditioning once you hit your “limit.” The push to eliminate cash is the final step in building this virtual prison. And under the guise of fighting “misinformation,” they are moving to criminalise dissent and “defossilise knowledge.”
When I warned about this nearly a decade ago, people laughed – yet nobody is laughing now. Everyday Australians are waking up to the fact that One Nation was right. We are the only party with the guts to stand up to this madness.
Our plan is simple: 1️ Withdraw from the United Nations and the World Health Organisation; 2️ Exit the UN Paris Agreement immediately; and 3️ Stop Net Zero to protect Australian living standards and sovereignty.
The UN is out of control, and this Labor government is their willing accomplice.
Put Australia first.
— Senate Speech | 25 November 2025
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: This month, 55,000 carpetbaggers, technocrats and enablers gathered in the shadow of the Amazon rainforest to breathe life into the greatest climate change scam for one more year. The United Nations conference of the parties, COP, COP30, in Belem, Brazil, has ended in failure. In this speech, I’m not being critical of the good people of Brazil, for whom One Nation has tremendous respect; I am being critical of elitist politicians, bureaucrats, parasites and thieves sucking on energy subsidies who are blind to their own hypocrisy, incompetence and dishonesty—hypocrisy such as building a highway through the Amazon rainforest to improve access to the conference venue, which turned into another ‘look the other way’ moment for the world press, still using climate change as a boogieman to scare people into continuing to read their rubbish. This highway bisects an environmental protection area and cuts through wetlands and dense secondary Amazon rainforest. The highway allows easy access for illegal logging, disrupts water and food supply for native inhabitants and actually increases the flooding risk in Belem. In other words, it’s just another day at the office for the hypocritical, incompetent, dishonest climate change zealots. Actual environmental groups and satellite monitoring from Imazon have tracked secondary deforestation already sprouting along the new corridor, in the classic fishbone pattern that often follows Amazon road building. An accurate estimate for the number of trees felled is 30,000—gone! This eliminated 10,000 tonnes of national carbon dioxide sequestration necessary for oxygen production.
This is something you’ve heard before from One Nation. Australia is already at net zero. Every year our extensive forests, natural and planted, absorb more carbon dioxide than Australia produces. Any talk of UN carbon dioxide reduction, as inhuman and nonsensical as that is, must acknowledge the essential role of planting and preserving trees and forests. Instead, in Australia we’re seeing large-scale deforestation, blowing the tops off entire mountains to locate massive wind turbines, and building access roads and easements for electricity transmission lines through the bush and national parks.
The environmental damage of UN COP30 doesn’t stop at rainforests. Only four per cent of Belem’s sewage is treated, and the rest gets dumped into waterways and, from there, into the sea. Attendees at the conference were billeted on luxury cruise ships in the harbour in Belem. Attendees were able to look over the side and see raw sewage from the conference floating past. How fitting is that? What a perfect metaphor for the excretable, failed theory of climate change.
I haven’t finished on the hypocrisy. Tarmac space limited the number of private planes arriving to 250, requiring the conversion of 14 local airports into parking lots for crony capitalists to park their jets whilst lecturing us on our carbon dioxide footprint. Domestic and international flights added another 50,000 seats, so I wonder how many people bothered to use the new highway through the Amazon. Perhaps the highway was for the workers, whilst the elites flew. I thought flying was a crime against mother earth, but the rules don’t apply to the people who make them. I was especially amused to see those same people who flew to Belem support an agenda item for a tax on airline flights to raise US$6 billion towards fighting themselves.
The final communique was a complete failure, a collection of weasel words and platitudes. UN COP30 turned into a cop-out. UN climate chief Simon Stiell hailed the communique as proof that climate cooperation is ‘alive’, and that their goal of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius was still ‘within reach’—a furtive plea if ever I heard one! Former environment minister Tanya Plibersek, from the Labor government, emphasised new hope for the 1.5-degree Celsius alignment. New hope? No, Minister, there is no chance and no hope the world will ever meet the Paris targets. There’s no scientific reason why they should. A stronger initial communique was rejected, with only 30 of the 194 delegates in support. The final cop-out communique only recommitted to the Paris accord and a voluntary global plan for eventual phase-out of hydrocarbon fuels, coal, oil and natural gas. Spot the weasel words: ‘voluntary’ and ‘eventual’. UN COP30 said the quiet part out loud. This is not going to happen.
The truth is that most countries have realised climate change science is wrong; net zero measures are ruinous; and hydrocarbon fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, are essential for maintaining living standards and for lifting underdeveloped nations out of poverty. This is about humanity. This is probably why Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, has accepted a thankyou job with the United Nations in acknowledgement of his service to the UN’s crooked cause.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Cox): Senator Roberts, just a reminder to refer to those from the other place by their correct titles.
Senator ROBERTS: Minister Chris Bowen. That means using the pretence of global warming to facilitate the transfer of income, wealth and opportunity from everyday Australians into the pockets of the world’s richest crony capitalists and their communist Chinese allies. His appointment has been criticised, but, from my perspective, the less this bloke is in Australia the less damage and hurt he can inflict on Australians.
Events like the conference of parties and Davos are not just talkfests, as one attendee told me. They have two purposes. One is to see what the billionaires that pull the world’s collective strings can get away with this year. The second is so that these predatory billionaires can steer world events to increase their own wealth and power. As an example, BlackRock Inc spent $10 million attending UN COP30 to advocate for a worldwide carbon dioxide tax and trading system so their executives can buy carbon dioxide credits and then live the same lives of plenty they live now. This isn’t speculation. They actually said that. The videos are online.
On the other hand, working Australians are increasingly being herded into smaller and smaller homes, smaller lives and smaller families, centred around train stations, which will ultimately become 15-minute cities. It will be a world of people working from their tiny apartments, stacked up in human filing cabinets. The latest approvals are now for 38 storeys—hundreds of families in an area that used to house four families and their backyards.
Do you remember backyards? There’s no place for personal space in this new globalist world of mass migration. You’ll be kept in this virtual prison by your personal carbon dioxide allowance, which will prevent car ownership, prevent travel, prevent meat—and no pets which eat meat. New clothes will be limited to three purchases a year, and there will be no air conditioning. There’s no provision for air conditioning in the platinum energy standard being advanced by the Greens and the teals. And that code includes sealing a home so tightly to reduce energy loss that air flow will be restricted and condensation will lead to an ongoing problem with mould. Try that one in Queensland!
If you think, ‘I will not comply,’ you will have no choice. Your bank is already preparing to help you limit your daily carbon dioxide output and, in 2030, will start denying transactions above your allowance. It’s a system that works only if cash is eliminated, which the Treasurer, the Labor treasurer, is trying to do now with new anticash regulations.
When I first talked about these things nine years ago, nearly a decade, the internet laughed. Well, the internet is laughing much less now, as this agenda starts to affect them personally. Everyday more and more Australians are realising One Nation was right about everything. This will be your future under the Liberal-Labor-Greens-teal globalist uniparty. In fact, this future is why the teals were invented: to take over from the Greens, who are moving into the lunatic fringe of politics, and to take over from the Liberals, who are starting to baulk at committing this crime against humanity.
Recent Liberal Party leadership changes at state level installed leaders who have signed onto the UN nightmare agenda. These leadership changes were designed to ensure that, if the federal party does change direction, those pro-Australia policies will be blocked at state level. There’s really no hope for the Liberal Party while it’s under Michael Photios’s control.
And don’t think you’ll be able to attend a protest rally or speak out in dissent. The Labor Party have colluded with the Greens and teal-like senators to hold a sham, show trial into freedom of speech, which they call ‘misinformation’. Not surprisingly, in this bias sham trial, freedom of speech is losing, as intended. The outcome will be misinformation laws that allow the government to suppress criticism and evidence of their failures, in the same way that the Keir Starmer’s regime has in the UK and Mark Carney in Canada. This trial, combined with schooling to year 12, university education for all high-school graduates and the under-16 social media and search ban, will ensure your children will not know what truth is. They will only know what the government wants them to know.
In June, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and climate change, Elisa Morgera, called for states to ‘defossilise knowledge’ through the criminalisation of what she defines as misinformation as well as criminalising media that amplify it. Defossilising knowledge—knowledge!—that is terrifying. Morgera wants criminal sanctions for those deemed to have obstructed climate action. The United Nation is out of control and so is this Labor government, with its Greens allies.
One Nation has all the answers to stop this. We will withdraw from the UN, the UN World Health Organization and the UN Paris Agreement and stop net zero.
I’ve been attending public hearings in relation to Climate Integrity and what I’ve witnessed in these hearings reveals a sobering preview of Australia’s future under this government.
Instead of using the Senate Committee to find the truth, I watched this Labor-Greens government use the platform to bully experts and silence dissent.
To hear a Senator claim that science is “not contested anymore” once a consensus is reached isn’t just wrong, it’s a rejection of the scientific method itself. Science relies on evidence and questioning, not government-mandated agreement.
Labor wants to be the “thought police” of Australia, censoring any opinion they find inconvenient. They are treating our Senate like a rubber stamp for censorship.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: One Nation will fight this every inch of the way. We will not let this government, with the help of the Greens, turn our beloved country into a place where free speech is not allowed.
– Senate Speech | November 2025
Transcript
Senator Roberts: Last week, Australians witnessed a terrifying demonstration of where our future lies under this Labor-Greens government, which implemented policy that the Morrison government initiated. It’s a future that does not include the right to free speech or even the right to hold an opinion which conflicts with the government’s. Labor senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah used her position as the Deputy Chair of the Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy to impose her views on witnesses, the reverse of the committee process, which allows all opinions to be heard. From that testimony the truth shall emerge. The senator dismissed expert testimony from the Institute of Public Affairs with this comment:
The thing about science is it is contested until it is not. When consensus is arrived at, it is not contested anymore.
The senator has a PhD in artificial intelligence, has published 40 papers and should know better.
The United States National Academy of Sciences defines the scientific method as ‘a process for developing and testing explanations of the world that relies on evidence, with the understanding that new evidence may revise or replace existing explanations’. There is no consensus provided for in that definition of the scientific method. Senators and witnesses who disputed the belief, based on the evidence, that humans are responsible for our changing climate were subjected to hostility, rudeness, smugness and arrogance unbefitting the Senate. The inquiry is a travesty of the Senate process. It’s a waste of taxpayer money and is designed to justify legislation to censor opinions it does not like. The government does not get to shut down dissent, censor inconvenient truths and cancel the right to free speech. One Nation will fight, every inch of the way, your attempts to set the government up as the thought police of Australia. You will not turn our beloved country into communist China.
This discussion with Matt Kean, Chair of the Climate Change Authority (CCA) and former Liberal NSW Energy Minister, focuses on the accuracy of his advice regarding energy prices, the reliability of renewable transitions, and the global commitment to Net Zero.
I challenged Mr. Kean on a 2020 claim that Australia could become an “energy superpower” with low-cost power. I argued that power prices have actually “increased astronomically” since then.
Mr. Kean maintained that wholesale prices are currently trending downward due to increased renewable penetration. He cited ABS data showing a recent 10.2% monthly drop in prices and AEMO reports showing a 38% quarterly decrease in wholesale costs. He attributed high bills to network charges and the unreliability of ageing coal plants rather than the renewable transition itself.
I questioned the $1 billion expenditure on the Waratah Super Battery, calling it a “wasted” stopgap for the Eraring coal plant, which has not yet closed. I asked how a short-duration battery could replace a 24/7 coal station.
Matt Kean said that the Waratah project is a “systems battery” (SIPS), not a standard storage battery. He said its purpose is to act as a “shock absorber” for the grid, allowing existing transmission lines to operate at higher capacities and “sweat” existing coal assets harder while integrating renewables.
Mr. Kean and Senator Ayres argued that the primary driver of cost and instability in the grid is the extreme age of Australian coal plants (averaging 38 years).
Senator Ayres noted that there had been daily unplanned outages from major coal plants (like Bayswater and Loy Yang) over the preceding three weeks, totalling 2.5 gigawatts of lost capacity, which spikes market prices.
Matt Kean corrected his previous figure (53% of global GDP), stating it is now much higher. He claimed that 165 countries representing 79% of global GDP and 87% of the world population have now committed to Net Zero targets, with many (including Australia) enshrining them in law.
This insane transition to renewables is a threat to our economic stability and industrial capacity. A One Nation government will dismantle Australia’s climate bureaucracy by abolishing the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, along with advisory bodies like the Climate Change Authority and the Net Zero Economy Authority.
Further, we will withdraw Australia from the Paris Agreement, repeal the Climate Change Act 2022, and eliminate the Renewable Energy Target.
Scrapping agencies such as ARENA and the CEFC, One Nation will end all subsidies for renewables, shifting the nation’s regulatory and administrative focus toward lowering electricity prices through the expansion of coal-fired power and the introduction of nuclear energy.
— Senate Estimates | December 2025
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again today. Mr Kean, my questions go to you. Your responsibility is to give the government correct advice. Is that correct?
Mr Kean: Frank and fearless correct advice—that’s right.
Senator ROBERTS: That advice could steer the direction of our entire country and potentially affect every one of the 28 million people in Australia. Is that correct?
Mr Kean: We provide advice that’s frank and fearless to the government of the day. It’s up to the government of the day as to whether or not they’ll accept that advice.
Senator ROBERTS: So you’d agree that it’s vital for the country that your advice is accurate and correct?
Mr Kean: We provide the best advice based on evidence and science to the government. As you well know, Senator, it goes through the cabinet process, the party room process and the parliamentary process. It’s up to the government and the parliament as to whether or not they accept the CCA’s advice.
Senator ROBERTS: I’d like to go to your track record and some forecasts. I’m going to quote you from the Energy Insiders podcast in 2020 with Renew Economy. You said: ‘If they’re looking for a global competitive advantage when it comes to low-cost energy, we can provide it. But we’ve got to move quickly and we’ve got to move now. That is an opportunity for us to be an economic superpower—not just an energy superpower but an economic superpower. It’s too big an opportunity not to grab.’ Since you said that you can provide low-cost energy in 2020, power prices have increased astronomically. When are Australians going to get the cheap power you promised?
Mr Kean: According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, they are already seeing those power prices coming down as a result of renewables. Look at power prices in October. They were 10.2 per cent lower than in the previous month. We know that they bounce around, particularly as state and Commonwealth rebates come into force or conclude, as it just happened to be. I, as a former energy minister in New South Wales, and we, as the Climate Change Authority, are acutely aware that some households and businesses are doing it tough and are looking at what costs they can contain. In the energy and climate war that we seem to be mired in yet again, perspective can be the first casualty. In the present consumer price index basket of goods and services that the Australian Bureau of Statistics uses to track inflation in the economy, electricity prices have a 1.84 per cent weighting. That’s not nothing, but I think it’s an important bit of context for you. Going back to those price trends that you talked about and that I stand by, no doubt you will have noted that wholesale prices have largely been in retreat of late, and that’s because renewable energy’s share of the grid is increasing. Check out AEMO’s Quarterly energy dynamics report for the September quarter. If you need the facts, they’re right there available to you. You’ll see that wholesale power prices across the national electricity market were on average 38 per cent below those of the June quarter this year. Compared with the September quarter last year, the fall was 27 per cent. That’s not because more fossil fuels have entered the market; that’s because renewable energy is pushing down wholesale prices. The more cheap energy we get into the market, the better off consumers and businesses will be.
Senator ROBERTS: Are wholesale prices going to be cheaper or more expensive than they were five or 10 years ago? Are they cheaper or more expensive than they were?
Mr Kean: As I said, just look at the Quarterly energy dynamics report that AEMO has just put out. It is clearly showing that wholesale prices are only heading in one direction. They make up about a third of a typical household’s—
Senator ROBERTS: Are they cheaper than they were five or 10 years ago?
Mr Kean: I’m not referring to the wholesale dynamics report comparing them to 10 years ago. I’m referring to the most recent one, which shows that wholesale prices are coming down.
Senator ROBERTS: My question was: are they cheaper or more expensive than they were five or 10 years ago?
Mr Kean: I don’t have that data in front of me, but I’m very happy to table that data for you.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Wholesale prices are only one part of someone’s bill. There will be many people watching here—small businesses, large businesses, families—who will have taken issue with what you said. An increasing part is the network charges, especially for transmission. Are the network charges going down as well?
Mr Kean: As I said, wholesale prices make up about a third of the typical household bill, and we know that the cheapest form of new generation is renewables. We know that ageing coal-fired and even gas-fired power plants will shut in the coming decade or so. So, to unlock that cheap wholesale energy produced by renewables, you will need more networks built. That’s for sure. Certainly I can talk to the situation in New South Wales, and perhaps some of these questions can be directed to the energy minister, which I am no longer. But what I will say, as the former energy minister in New South Wales, is that, when we legislated the roadmap, we looked at the net impact on consumer bills of transitioning towards a firmed renewables-based grid, including transmission line upgrades. What we were able to clearly demonstrate is that net, on average, consumers would be much better off as a result of the transition.
Senator ROBERTS: In your role as New South Wales energy minister you commissioned the $1 billion Waratah battery, which recently suffered a catastrophic failure. You commissioned and designated as a top priority project this huge expenditure as a stopgap for the closure of Eraring this year. It was forecast to close this year. Eraring didn’t close this year. Experts are saying it might not close before 2030. So the $1 billion shock absorber you put in place as New South Wales energy minister isn’t needed anymore as a stopgap. If you wasted $1 billion on a battery that wasn’t needed, why should we trust that you can provide good advice to the federal government? Can you explain exactly how a 0.7 gigawatt battery that lasts for two hours is meant to replace a coal-fired power station that can run at 2.8 gigawatts for 23 hours a day.
Mr Kean: I’m very happy to explain what we did when it came to considering the exit of Eraring. It’s a matter of public record that Origin Energy suggested they would bring forward the closure of that coal-fired power station seven years earlier than we anticipated. As the former minister for energy, I can say we conducted an arms-length process headed up by a number of experts, including Kerry Schott, the former chair of the Energy Security Board. We ran a competitive tender process for different technologies to fill that gap. We had input from AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, the engineers who the run the system, and we compared the cost of extending Eraring for 18 months with a number of other options to fill that capacity gap. In terms of the work that was done by independent expert advice, we were advised that the best option for the total New South Wales power grid was to build a systems battery, a SIPS battery, that would unlock greater capacity in the transmission networks to be able to sweat the other coal-fired power stations harder and would open up the ability to bring more renewable energy into the system. You’re characterising the battery as a storage battery. It’s not a storage battery; it’s a systems battery that unlocks more capacity and new transmission networks. That means you can run your existing coal-fired power stations harder—think Vales Point and Bayswater—and you can get more renewable capacity stored. That was the basis from which we went down that path, and anyone suggesting otherwise is being dishonest.
Senator ROBERTS: On New South Wales election night, when your government was defeated in 2023, I distinctly remember the incoming Labor energy minister flagging the need to keep Eraring open. She was quite clear about it. She was on a panel and on the night of the election she said, ‘We’re going to have to do something about keeping Eraring.’ They weren’t her words, but that was basically what she said. Why would she have that point there? Many people think that New South Wales cannot operate as an industrial economy without Eraring continuing, and now there are talks of Eraring continuing. What did she know as opposition energy minister and spokesman that you didn’t?
Mr Kean: Maybe I could refer you to the evidence of Deputy Secretary Duggan who just appeared before the inquiry. He made the point that the average age of our coal-fired power stations in the national energy market is 38 years and the average end closure date of coal-fired power stations is 42 years. We can’t keep putting bandaids or temporary solutions in place. We need to plan for the future. What you need are clear targets and good policies to get new capacity installed. Just because you say you’re going to extend an aged, clapped-out coal-fired power station doesn’t mean it’s going to work. We need to build new capacity before the old capacity closes. That’s the responsible thing to do. Whether it be in my role as the former New South Wales energy minister or in my current role as the independent chair of the Climate Change Authority, I will always act on the best evidence and advice of experts. I’m advising you to do likewise.
Senator ROBERTS: You’re hiding behind averages. A lot of damage can be done doing that.
Mr Kean: No. I’m just making the point.
Senator ROBERTS: I asked you a question about Eraring. Why did the incoming Labor energy minister want to keep Eraring open?
Mr Kean: It’s another question for—
Senator Ayres: I think it’s outside of—it’s pretty hard for Mr Kean to put—
Senator ROBERTS: It goes to the accuracy of forecasts.
Senator Ayres: himself into the mind of the current New South Wales energy minister. I think that’s a very difficult thing for him to do. But Mr Kean’s right—the biggest driver of cost in the electricity system at the moment is our ageing coal generators and the incessant, regular outages. There has not been a single day over the last three weeks where there hasn’t been an unplanned outage. A couple of days ago we had Bayswater, Gladstone, Loy Yang, Vales Point and Yallourn—a total of 2½ gigawatts of unplanned outage. That drives cost in the system. Mr Kean’s point is right. The way to deal with that is to build more renewables, build more storage and build more transmission. Nobody from Cape York to Bruny Island or from Sydney to Perth is going to build a coal-fired power station, because it’s a dumb idea. It’s a dumb idea economically.
Senator ROBERTS: Has the national electricity market been tested?
Senator Ayres: It’s a dumb idea in commercial terms. It’s a bad idea for the grid. It builds additional cost into the system. At the moment we are dealing with the reality of the fact that it’s coal that’s driving cost. A decade of disinvestment is compounding that. That’s the truth of it. If you want to keep prosecuting the imported culture wars, go for your life.
Senator ROBERTS: Last question?
CHAIR: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Okay. The minister seems to be unaware of the electricity rules and the national electricity market, which favour solar and wind and destroy coal. We’ll leave that aside. You say: ‘The world is moving in this direction. Fifty-three per cent of the world’s GDP has signed up to achieve zero net emissions by 2050, so it’s only going in one direction.’ Yet we’ve seen the USA China and India—we’ve seen massive numbers of countries—walk away from net zero, and others don’t bother complying. Do you still stand by your figure that 53 per cent are committed to achieving net zero by 2050?
Mr Kean: No, I don’t. I’d like to revise that number. It’s now 165 countries that have announced a net zero target. These countries account for 78 per cent of global emissions, 79 per cent of GDP and 87 per cent of the global population. That was in 2022. That’s a vast increase since I cited those figures a few years ago. So 149 countries have announced a net zero target by 2050 or sooner and around 50 countries have enshrined their net zero target in domestic legislation—including Australia—with more planning to do so. That’s 37 out of 38 OECD member countries having a net zero target. So, no, I don’t stand by those previous comments. They’ve been exceeded since then, and people denying the reality of the momentum behind the need to reduce our emissions are not acting in Australia’s interests.
RBA cash rate rises create serious concern for 5% home deposits
Labor’s ‘Big Australia’ mass migration project, designed to shore-up Albanese’s vote at the next election, has created a catastrophic housing shortage.
Everyone knows it.
Even if the media and self-interested uniparty choose to deny the facts.
Young people across the country know it too. They are the ones standing in rental lines behind 50 people who cannot speak English, trying to decipher rental signs written in a foreign language and clearly pitched to everyone except Aussie kids.
They feel upset. Betrayed. Left out. And ignored.
These Australians know they are competing against Labor’s migration agenda, not organic competition like their parents and grandparents faced. This is not, in any way, a ‘fair’ housing market.
When these young Australians decide to ditch the soul-crushing rental queue and take on the dream of home ownership that changed their parents’ lives – they discover an even worse situation.
The price of homes, including small city apartments in the areas they need to live to keep their jobs, are unattainable.
Some of this price increase is to do with greedy government fees and charges, while the rest is a consequence of too much demand from people who live outside the Australian economic cost-of-living crisis. Foreign buyers often have the means to push prices well above what they should be.
In Australia, house prices have advanced much faster than the average wage. Even those earning $100,000 per year – once considered a mark of success – feel that home ownership is financially impossible. These people are no longer considered to be ‘doing well’. They are struggling.
Not to mention that the average worker has a considerable amount of their wage taken as ‘super’ and given to union funds to play the stockmarket. This makes union super funds rich and pushes huge volumes of investment money into projects – usually in the green industry – that otherwise would never receive private funding. $4.5 trillion has been taken out of people’s pockets and locked away. This money remains untouchable until someone turns 65. 8-10% of Australians will die before they access their super (or 56% of Indigenous Australians). That money used to be used for home investment and there is good reason to believe that compulsory super is one of the contributing factors to a major drop in home ownership amongst the middle and working classes.
There are ways to immediately improve the housing situation – the most obvious being the deportation of visa overstayers and a severe cut to migration. This would immediately free up hundreds of thousands of properties for domestic buyers and renters.
That would benefit Australians and massively hurt the political class and their major financial backers.
Instead of doing the right thing, Chalmers & Co have designed a system to turn a profit from the hardship and desperation of young Australians.
In August of 2025, the Labor government introduced their 5% deposit scheme for first home buyers. There is also another version of this for single parents to buy a home with a 2% deposit.
Labor described this as ‘helping more Australians realise their dream of home ownership’ where the government (taxpayers) ‘guarantee a portion of a first home buy’s home loan with a lower deposit and not pay Lenders Mortgage Insurance’.
Their argument is this:
‘All first home buyers will have access, with no caps on places or incomes limits. Property price caps will also be set higher in line with the average house prices, providing access to a greater variety of homes.’
Predictably, this did not unlock more desirable homes – it created an almost immediate increase in home prices. Labor said it would be 0.6% over the medium term. Instead, it was 3.6% in the first quarter. The developers win. Ministers in Canberra with property portfolios win.
Finder says the average loan amount for first home buyers in December 2025 was $607,624. This is a huge sum of money. In 2015, you could expect a first homebuyer to take on $333,500. Westpac says first homebuyers are typically over 40. This shows you how much harder it is to get enough financial security to consider buying a home.
And while the ‘average wage’ is listed as $104,000, it’s suspected that this figure is skewed and the real average is probably closer to $88,000. After tax that’s around $69,000.
If you think this whole thing sounds like a bad idea, you’re right.
To translate it into economic reality, Labor is encouraging and actively changing the rules to allow young Australians to take on loans they cannot realistically afford (and would not be normally given) right when the RBA has warned it will continue to raise the cash rate – which it has done multiple times since the scheme began.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he did his degree in ‘Paul Keating’ – now he is in danger of re-creating Keating’s gravest mistake.
A person with a normal mortgage that they attained under strict rules is already suffering under the RBA rate rises. Individuals who took on a 95% mortgage are at a very serious risk of defaulting. It only takes a small rate rise on a sum of money this large to lead them into disaster.
An entire generation of vulnerable, trusting Australians have been led into imminent economic ruin by a government that thought 5% deposits were nothing more than a vote-buying game.
It isn’t a game.
It’s people’s lives.
People’s futures.
This isn’t about ‘votes for Labor’ for people who think the government is ‘gifting’ them a house, it’s about Australians watching their savings burn and homes taken off them in a time of economic uncertainty.
It’s rare to find a government that cares so little about young people – although we know exactly why they did it.
Mass migration is a vote buying operation for the Labor Party. They cannot give it up, even though home ownership is the leading election topic among their rising young demographic that is in danger of being taken by the Greens. Labor has made a wager on a short-term vote winner with no regard for the coming disaster.
Even the Daily Mail warned of an impending catastrophe after the latest RBA cash rate rise highlighted a significant rise in risky mortgages (4% of the total market!)
To quote:
‘While the banks are insulated by the government guarantee, which covers the first 15% of any losses from these loans, households are exposed. The banks are fine. The main risk falls on individuals.’
It’s widely expected war in Iran, and the high petrol prices and fuel insecurity that flow on from this scenario, will increase inflation and lead to even more rate rises in the near future.
Government debt – also known as Chalmers’ spending spree – is the main driver of inflation and the interest repayments on this blackhole are climbing every day.
When debt passes $1 trillion – which it is expected to do shortly – interest payments will cost $60 million per day or $41,667 every minute.
Every Australian – whether they are an infant or retired – owes $806.65 every year in just interest. And that’s if Chalmers stops spending right now. And to pay off the $1 trillion debt tomorrow, it would require every person to cough up $36,850.01.
If fuel prices increase (or fuel rationing starts), we can expect a catastrophic loss of businesses and, therefore, jobs. How many young people will lose their jobs and be unable to service these mortgages?
The uniparty doesn’t care. The government never loses.
It raises taxes. It tightens your belt so it can eat more money.
Remember, if you think the LNP are any better, they have their own reasons for supporting ‘Big Australia’. The Howard government marked the start of mass migration. All Coalition governments since have done nothing to change it and they never will.
One Nation are desperately worried about the future young people face.
We have a comprehensive policy to cut immigration by over 570,000 and to deport 75,000 migrants visa over-stayers, illegal workers, and unlawful non-residents who threaten our national security. We also have a housing policy to ensure unnecessary fees, charges, and taxes are cut to get homes built without destroying our green spaces or cultural heritage.
One Nation is here to make a genuine difference for you, not Canberra.
Labor TRAPPED young people by Senator Malcolm Roberts
RBA cash rate rises create serious concern for 5% home deposits
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Housing.jpg?fit=654%2C657&ssl=1657654Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2026-03-26 10:14:112026-03-26 10:14:24Labor Trapped Young People
For decades, the Liberal-Labor uniparty has sold out Australians to a globalist agenda.
Sky-high electricity prices, crushed farmers and unaffordable housing aren’t accidents; they are the result of the UN’s Agenda 21 and the psychopathic UN criminal Maurice Strong and his plan to deindustrialise the West.
From the UN’s 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the current “Net Zero” madness, elected Liberal-National-Labor leaders have been blindly following a foreign script. The Howard Liberal-National government started this dishonest madness. It stole farmers property rights, imposed renewable energy targets and proposed the first policy for a carbon dioxide TAX, an emissions trading scheme to make Maurice Strong a billionaire.
The current approach to climate and energy policy is built on scientific uncertainty and economic risk. Minister Chris Bowen’s department lacks scientific proof of climate change and defers instead to the UN IPCC, an organisation that relies on “guesses” rather than empirical data.
We are being driven off a $1.9 trillion cliff for climate prostitutes stealing subsidies for large solar and wind projects that lack cost-benefit analysis. Additionally, farmers’ rights have been stolen, affordable energy destroyed and $30 billion a year is being wasted on UN climate compliance.
One Nation is the only party with a plan to: ✅ Exit the UN Paris Agreement ✅ Abolish the Department of Climate Change, saving $30 billion/year in UN waste ✅ Restore affordable coal and gas ✅ Build dams and infrastructure ✅ Put AUSTRALIANS first, not globalist billionaires.
👉 Vote One Nation to secure a future for your children, your grandchildren – and every generation to follow.
Trancript
Senator Roberts: As people awaken to the Liberal-Labor uniparty facade, polls show the political status quo is changing and ending. The one thing I want everyone to remember is that Australia’s economic and environmental destruction is based on the psychopathic United Nations criminal Maurice Strong. It matters, because all Australians are suffering unaffordable energy prices, cruel cost of living and family-crushing house prices and rents. The Howard Liberal-National government started this dishonest madness. It stole farmers property rights to comply with the UN’s 1997 Kyoto protocol. It imposed its renewable energy target and proposed the first policy for a carbon dioxide tax—an emissions trading scheme to make Maurice Strong a billionaire.
Energy prices affect every aspect of our lives and lifestyles. It’s the foundation of modern civilisation and international competitiveness. In a recent Senate inquiry, Minister Chris Bowen’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water could not provide me with scientific proof climate is changing. They deferred to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the UN body that Maurice Strong spawned. The UN IPCC provides no hard data as proof. It guesses likelihoods and confidence levels to fraudulently imply statistical rigour where there is none.
The department then revealed it has no specific, measured policy basis for transition to unaffordable solar, wind and batteries under Maurice Strong’s UN Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development Goals. It has no specific impact of human carbon dioxide as basis for policy—confirming no cost-benefit analysis, no evaluation of policy options, no business case, no plan and no tracking implementation. We are not transitioning in this country. Minister Chris Bowen is blindly driving us off a cliff at a cost of $1.9 trillion for nothing. Australians now suffer the world’s most stupid and highest electricity prices. Meanwhile, President Trump in America uses real science to restore affordable hydrocarbon fuels—coal, oil and natural gas.
My team has 24,000 datasets from science agencies worldwide, including our own Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO. They show no change in climate—temperature; rainfall; storm frequency, severity or duration; drought, ocean temperature; or extreme weather—but just show ongoing inherent natural variation in cycles: warm/cool, warm/cool.
Maurice Strong was a Canadian oil magnate who, in 1972, started the UN environmental program UNEP. Six months later he manipulated and schemed his way to be its head. In 1976 UNEP fabricated science to ban the insecticide DDT that had eradicated malaria in the West. After 40- to 50 million needless deaths from malaria—Indians, Asians and Africans—the UN restored the use of DDT in 2006. The world’s list of mass killers is Chairman Mao, 60 million deaths; Maurice Strong, 40- to 50 million; Joseph Stalin, 40 million; and Adolph Hitler, 20 million.
In 1980 Maurice Strong started systematically entrenching bogus claims of future climate catastrophe due to carbon dioxide from human activity—power stations, industry, transport, travel and animal farming. In 1988 he formed the UN’s political climate body, the IPCC, and fraudulently proclaimed it ‘scientific’. His purpose was to corrupt climate science to mislead and scare people worldwide with unfounded fear. For example, in its second science report in 1995, scientists concluded they could find no evidence of human carbon dioxide affecting climate, yet the IPCC’s Ben Santer—he’s still in the IPCC—single-handedly reversed that to say they did. All six UN science reports rely on distortion and fraud. Why?
Maurice Strong was a founding director of the Chicago Climate Exchange, trading carbon dioxide credits—a corrupt global carbon dioxide tax—to make its directors billionaires, to provide the UN with ongoing revenue independent of member-nation grants and to guarantee revenue for his ambitions of global governance. Maurice Strong then built paths and systems for climate prostitutes stealing subsidies for solar and wind. When American law enforcement wanted Maurice Strong for illegal water trading and the UN’s oil-for-food scandal, he exiled himself to China, a major beneficiary of the West’s climate and energy insanity.
In his report for the UN, the Club of Rome’s Maurice Strong stated:
In searching for a new enemy to unite us—
being humans globally—
we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.
He was a lying scaremonger.
In 1992 UN Earth Summit Secretary-General Maurice Strong—there he is again—said:
It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, ownership of motor vehicles, small electrical appliances, home and workplace air conditioning and suburban housing are not sustainable …
The reports said human activity caused these ‘dangers’ and needed a global response.
Maurice Strong stated his life’s aims as ‘deindustrialising Western civilisation’ and ‘putting in place an unelected socialist global governance’. In 1992 Paul Keating’s Labor government signed UN Agenda 21 that pushed 17 so-called sustainable development goals to control every aspect of every person’s life globally. John Howard’s Liberal-National government accelerated an entrenched implementation of UN Agenda 21, including its 2007 Water Act. Its energy transition is now destroying what had been the world’s best electricity supply grid, stealing farmers’ property rights and laying the foundation for pushing Maurice Strong’s policies across Australia. In 1996 one federal MP, Pauline Hanson, courageously exposed it all. In 2013 the South Australian MP Ann Bressington gave details of UN Agenda 21 fabricating bogus crises blamed on humans.
Maurice Strong said, ‘The enemy is humanity itself.’ They hate you and they want to control every aspect of our lives, lifestyles and society, transferring wealth from we the people to globalist climate prostitutes. An extraordinarily clever and scheming Maurice Strong manipulated national leaders to adopt his programs to save the planet and humanity from humans. In my first Senate speech, in 2016, I called out UN Agenda 21 and called for Australia to exit the UN. I’m pleased to say that’s now One Nation policy.
We want the people of Australia to regain control over their lives and over our nation. We want Australians to keep the billions of dollars currently being transferred to climate and energy whores, who are stealing your money through subsidies, grants and taxes, enabled by people in this Senate. As your financial position goes backwards, Labor, Greens and moderates in the Liberals drive social policies to attack and divide you as colonisers, degendered and disrespected.
Maurice Strong drove those attacks with policies to smash both foundations of human civilisation: the family and the nation-state. Maurice Strong died in 2015, one month before his UN Paris Agreement was signed and his legacy UN net zero program targets were set—targets to which Labor, Liberal, the teals and the Greens all remain committed. They silently and dishonestly impose UN restrictions, fraud and burdens on Australians to govern with invalid edicts from New York and Geneva.
One Nation will remove Maurice Strong’s psychopathic grip over Australia. Instead, One Nation will return you to affordable energy; affordable living; affordable housing; lifestyle choices, making families strong again; industry, with breadwinner jobs; and a future with abundance, built on realising Australia’s true potential. One Nation is changing Australia’s political status quo. One Nation will abolish the department of climate change, leave the UN Paris Agreement and the UN Kyoto protocol, and stop UN net zero and all associated regulations, schemes and spending to save more than $30 billion a year in duplication and waste. That $30 billion a year we will use to build infrastructure that benefits everyday Australians, starting with Queensland’s Urannah Dam irrigation project and a new greenfield hospital in Albury. A vote for One Nation will end Maurice Strong’s psychopathic, criminal control over our country and put Australia first.
How Labor is turning fuel security into another Net Zero scam under the banner of ‘national security’
Despite decades of warnings, Australia has been exposed to an incredibly dangerous situation.
We have 20-ish days of fuel security, much of it hosted offshore, and all of it draining away as war escalates in the Middle East.
As for a backup plan? That doesn’t exist.
‘In a time of conflict, this government is running a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude.
‘There is no need to panic-buy petrol…’ insisted our reckless, over-spending Treasurer, Jim Chalmers.
Chalmers was simultaneously trying to blame the war in Iran for his dodgy budget accounting while pretending there’s ‘nothing to see here’ with the fuel situation.
Prime Minister Albanese’s Energy Minister, who has forgotten about carbon emissions, backed Chalmers’ comments, insisting that panic buying would ‘just make the situation worse’.
It’s impossible for Australian taxpayers to make the fuel situation ‘worse’ after successive Labor and Coalition Unitparty governments left us in a catastrophic position. We import 90% of our liquid fuel – this includes our requirements for domestic transport, industry, agriculture, and military defence.
To save money on storage, the vast majority of these imports come as ‘just-in-time’ deliveries.
Even the fuel we import from Asia is sourced largely from the Middle East – and we can expect China to lean heavily on this supply now that its import network is severely disrupted after what happened in Venezuela, Iran, and the wider Middle East.
Other nations are forced to rely on dicey international transit routes, and Australia has chosen to do the same. This is a monumental political failure.
Over 20 years, six of our eight refineries were closed or substantially wound down with ‘competition from Asia’ cited as the reason. Two of these critical refineries met their demise under the watch of the then-Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who now seeks to present himself as the salvation of conservatism.
At the time of ExxonMobil’s decision to close the Altona refinery (constructed in 1946), Angus Taylor said this ‘will not negatively impact Australian fuel stockholdings’.
This was simply wrong. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.
Successive Coalition-Labor governments have sold Australia’s national security off to free up cash in the budget or because they could not be bothered to argue the case of national security when it mattered.
We still have minimum reserve supply rates, which are designed to buffer against natural disasters and temporary disruptions – they are not satisfactory for extended periods of global conflict nor do they make provisions for the fuel-guzzling behaviours of our geopolitical partners. This means that earlier war-gaming by the government, which insists Australia can buy its way out of a shortage, lack the real-world probability that nations will protect their own needs above our contractual arrangements.
It’s a cold, hard reality that if Australia were to be cut-off from its fuel deliveries, the wheels of our nation would fall off in early April.
A 2018 report commissioned by the government suggested Australia maintain domestic refinery capabilities. It did not foresee simultaneous disruption to Asian, Middle Eastern, and South American fuel markets. It did not foresee conflict zones and regime changes in Europe, the Middle East, and South America. It did not foresee the largest refinery in the Middle East going up in flames, or Iran deliberately targeting the entire energy structure of its neighbours. And it did not foresee the oil politics taking place between Russia, Ukraine, and neighbouring nations such as Hungary.
In other words, the government report failed to properly gauge future risk and assumed a world that no longer exists.
…even after US President Donald Trump gave everyone the hint with his, Drill, baby, drill! push to bolster domestic supply.
As the Maritime Union of Australia said earlier this week:
‘This is not a distant geopolitical drama, but a direct threat to Australian workers, families, and industries.
When a fifth of the world’s oil moves through a single maritime corridor and that corridor is shut by war, the consequences are immediate.’
It’s in this environment that our party leader, Pauline Hanson, put forward a proposal for an immediate inquiry into fuel security. To this we would also request full transparency on how long it would take and how much it would cost to construct domestic self-sufficiency in fuel refineries.
These are things we need to know.
And what did Labor and the Greens do?
They voted it down.
They put party politics ahead of Australia’s security and your future survival.
Their dislike of Pauline Hanson, who they wasted time censuring for a second time, overrode their responsibility to the people of this nation. This is the type of politicking that must end.
While we take fuel security seriously, there is evidence mounting that Labor and the Greens intend to use public panic as a means to prop-up their dying ‘Net Zero’ industry.
The Climate Catastrophism narrative has well and truly worn off, with most Australians – and nations around the world – realising that it was a scam designed to line the pockets of mining operations and foreign energy companies with public money. A lot of politicians found very rich private sector jobs after legislating in favour of all things ‘green’.
Now, ‘national security’ has become the next unquestionable buzz word that can be invoked by the Prime Minister, Treasurer, and his Energy Minister to justify another pivot toward decarbonisation.
The outrageous propaganda is already starting.
News.com.au ran a story at the beginning of March, Why your next car is a matter of Australia’s national security.
It was one of many pieces caught up in the ‘EV to save us from the Iran war’ frenzy.
If you wouldn’t drive an electric car for yourself, would you do it for your country? Conflict in Iran is a stark reminder: an EV is more than a personal choice – it’s a matter of national security. Choosing an EV makes you, me, and our wider community less reliant on fossil fuels.
The Australian Electric Vehicle Association also put out a press release: EVs have always been about fuel security. Really? I thought they were about ‘saving the world’?
AEVA argues that the full electrification of transport remains the single most effective strategy the nation can enact to improve fuel security.
Of course, there is no explanation as to how relying on communist China – which uses Middle Eastern oil to build EVs and Middle Eastern diesel to ship them to Australia – solves any of our problems.
Nor is there a reliable answer to the transport industry, which is incompatible with electric trucks. And there isn’t even a faint ‘nod’ to where China sources the materials for the construction of our renewable grid – those being volatile African nations which operate under a mixture of debt-trapping and despot corruption, abuses of human rights, and traversing regions of the world prone to terrorism and war.
Even if we were to replace our domestic fossil fuel energy grid with solar, wind, and batteries – there is nothing more vulnerable in a time of conflict than a giant solar industrial complex or thousands of kilometres of transmission lines running through undefended forests and open ocean.
Strategically, it’s madness.
In reality – it’s impossible.
Yet attempting to achieve this lunacy is a ‘national security’ narrative with which the Prime Minister and his mates will likely try to appease the Greens.
The Greens have come out in open defiance in recent weeks and their voters will see it as an ideological victory and anti-war protest. Their support will join huge corporations already gorging on taxpayer dollars and unions protecting Net Zero-inclined funds.
Money and opportunism are about to hijack public fear over the war to revive the Net Zero industry.
And it will do so at the expense of Australia’s national security.
One Nation believes this to be one of the most dangerous fake news narratives an Australian government has ever sold. A short-sighted, selfish political move that could leave Australia open to a very real logistic catastrophe.
We call on the entire Parliament to put fuel security at the top of the agenda, and to restore Australia’s energy grid to self-sufficient network as a matter of urgency.
One Nation will immediately buy whatever supplies we can obtain in the market, which the Albanese government is still not doing. Then we will work with fuel companies to get new oil refineries in Kurnell and upgrade the Lytton plant in Brisbane, and Geelong in Victoria.
We will immediately start construction on gas-to-fuel plants and legislate a domestic gas reservation so we have cheap Australian gas to convert to fuel. We will build the missing link in the national gas network – a pipeline to connect the East coast and West coast gas networks.
This violation of national security can never be allowed to happen again.
‘Running on empty’ by Senator Malcolm Roberts
How Labor is turning fuel security into another Net Zero scam under the banner of ‘national security’
Why is the Albanese Labor government making it easier for their corporate mates with every piece of legislation?
This Bill – the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Energy Regulator Separation) Bill 2025 – is another step toward letting powerful corporations, including foreign multinationals, continue to gouge Australians. By removing the regulator from the ACCC’s oversight, Labor is effectively hiding the energy market from competition and consumer protections.
This isn’t a market; it’s a bureaucratic racket designed to transfer wealth from hardworking Australians to parasitic billionaires under the cover of the “Net Zero” scam.
Worst of all, regulators will no longer be required to disclose their personal financial interests. This is a green light for cronyism.
We know over 80% of Australians are paying too much for electricity, yet Labor protects the profits of their wind and solar mates over the welfare of Australian families.
I will always put everyday Australians before corporations and will continue to fight for lower power bills for every Australian.
Acknowledgements
I acknowledge the over 300 community groups across Australia fighting the rollout of industrial-sized wind and solar projects — the so-called “renewable” energy projects. The only thing renewable about them is that they have to be replaced every 15 years.
Among the many Australians standing up across our country, I recognise:
Katy McCallum, Steven Nowakowski (what a man!), Grant Piper, and Emma Bowman.
Bill Stinson, Sandra Burke, Steven Tripp, Andrew Weidemann, and Katherine Meyers.
These people are for Australia, for the regions, and for every citizen.
I also recognise a list of true champions for Australia: Colin Boyce, Llew O’Brien, Ben Abbott, Alex O’Brien, Michaela Humble, Michelle Hunt, Lynette LaBlack, and Rafe Champion.
Finally, my thanks to:
Neil Kilion, Sasha McNaughton, Caroline Emms, Nikki Kelly, Alex Nichol, Martine Shepherd, and Scott Baxter.
The Bob Brown Foundation (thank you, Bob!), the IPA, Rainforest Reserves, and the Centre for Independent Studies.
Ben Beattie and Aidan Morrison, two giants of the energy sector.
Transcript
Why is the Albanese Labor government making it easier for their corporate mates with every piece of legislation? This bill before us, the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Australian Energy Regulator Separation) Bill 2025, will likely pass without a whimper. You won’t hear much about it from either side of politics. Yet it’s another step towards a handful of powerful corporations, including foreign-owned multinationals, continuing to gouge Australians at every turn. This legislation separates the Australian Energy Regulator to establish them as fully independent and separate. The Energy Regulator currently lives in the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s house, the ACCC. The ACCC supplies staffing and resources to the Energy Regulator to help it discharge its functions. While the bill frames the ACCC’s oversight as a problem, having the competition regulator ultimately responsible for energy market oversight is a very good thing.
Ending energy market oversight is terrible. The energy market so-called ‘market’ is one of the most prescriptive and rigid areas of bureaucratic government. It’s not a market; it’s a racket—a bureaucratic racket. The risk for corruption and monopolisation is extreme. The Australian Energy Market Operator, AEMO, operates our entire electricity grid. It sounds like a government agency, yet somehow it’s a private body. No-one’s allowed to lodge a freedom of information request with them. They don’t turn up to parliamentary hearings for Senate estimates. They hide from scrutiny. That’s the key word for net zero with this government and the previous Liberal-National government—’hide’; hide the cost, hide the lack of policy basis, hide the damage, hide the lack of a plan.
Now look at the AEMO board. Employees of for-profit energy and transmission companies dominate the AEMO board. We’re supposed to just trust they’re effectively prescribing rules and directing billions of dollars in taxpayer money purely for the public good, not for energy company profits—bloody ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. This is setting up government as a vehicle for wealth transfer from us, the people, to parasites—parasites not working in Australia’s national interest, hurting Australia and hurting Australians.
With this bill, the government is taking the Energy Regulator out of the competition regulator. The ACCC’s role in energy markets is in the context of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, which aims to—listen to this—’enhance the welfare of Australians through the promotion of competition and fair trading and provision of consumer protections’. That’s a great goal. Why would we want to make the Energy Regulator more independent of that and put it beyond scrutiny and put it in hiding? If we’re trying to figure out if that’s a good thing to do, the first question to ask should be this: are there any competition problems in the energy market? If the answer is yes, maybe the competition regulator should have final oversight, like it does right now.
So let’s look at the ACCC’s work on the electricity market. The first shot across the bow was the ACCC’s 2017 preliminary report eight years ago. In that report, the ACCC said:
The ACCC has published a preliminary report into the electricity market highlighting significant concerns about the operation of the National Electricity Market, which is leading to serious problems with affordability for consumers and businesses.
What? That’s what they said eight years ago. The ACCC thought prices were ‘putting Australian businesses and consumers under unacceptable pressure’. Since then, prices have become much, much worse. One can only wonder why. Market participants harp on about pulling the Energy Regulator out of the competition regulator while the ACCC highlights ‘significant concerns’ about how energy corporations are actually acting, behaving.
Another headline from the ACCC, in December 2024 in the Financial Review, said, ‘More than 80 per cent of Aussies paying too much for their electricity.’ There was another story in May this year, ‘”Super complaint” filed with ACCC over misleading energy plans’. I’ll quote it: ‘CHOICE’—that’s CHOICE magazine, the consumer group—’has sent its first-ever super complaint to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC, over allegations that retailers in the Australian energy market have engaged in dodgy and misleading pricing tactics that leave customers paying $65 million more than they should.’
So, returning to our overall question, are there any competition issues in the energy market? Should the competition regulator be involved in monitoring every aspect of those issues? The answer to both is a resounding yes.
The ACCC will wrap up its ongoing reports into the electricity market in August. After that, there’s a real risk that competition in the electricity market will continue to deteriorate and deteriorate and deteriorate even further. What will that mean? It will mean higher prices and poorer service for Australians. Less competition means bigger profits for Labor’s big corporate mates in the energy sector, who are often foreign owned multinationals or parasitic billionaires. That’s what this bill represents—wealth transferred to the wealthy; a step towards higher profits for multinational corporations who want to gouge Australians even more under the cover of the renewables scam.
Indeed, under the new Australian Energy Regulator, workers will no longer be required to make disclosures of their personal interests, as everyone in the ACCC is obliged to. This is as good as a green light for everyone with a conflict of interest to get involved in the new Energy Regulator—and you, the government, are doing this. The risk of corruption, cronyism and favouritism will be so big it will make the director of the National Anti-Corruption Commission blush. The Albanese Labor government has long signalled its intention to put the profits of its corporate wind and solar mates above and beyond competition—and above Australian workers and above Australian families and above Australian small businesses and employers and above Australia.
Why doesn’t today’s Labor realise that its official, registered name is the a-l-p—Australian Labor Party? It seems to have forgotten and ditched Australia. Why do they continue to ditch Australia? And there’s no ‘u’ in Labor, because the l-a-b-o-r party does not represent you.
Upon coming to government in 2022, Labor almost immediately transferred the energy regulator part of the Competition and Consumer Act out of Treasury and away from the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury to the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Minister Bowen. Can you believe that? It happened—the fox guarding the henhouse; the fox destroying the energy sector and making it a racket for Labor’s private mates to gouge Australians. If there’s a battle between lower prices and profits for wind and solar, everyone in this chamber knows where Minister Chris Bowen’s loyalties lie. Can Australia trust that Minister Bowen will choose competition and lower prices over net zero and the profits of parasitic renewables grifter-billionaires? Absolutely not. Based on his behaviour to date, every day of the week Minister Bowen will choose the profits of these renewables scammers over Australians and over Australia.
The net zero dream is that you’ll pay $8,000 for a home battery and $60,000 for an electric vehicle and the grid will pay you nothing to drain it overnight to stabilise their dodgy market, their racket. That’s called ‘consumer energy resources’ and ‘virtual power plants’. Without them, the net zero pipedream just collapses.
Competition doesn’t even come into consideration. This corrupted state control and abuse of consumer rights is a built-in feature of the net zero scam from the Liberal-Nationals and the Labor-Greens—citizens directly paying 70 per cent of the cost of the transition to net zero. You pay; they control and they use. In other areas, some people reliably estimate taxpayers and electricity consumers are paying 100 per cent of the $1.9 trillion transition to the UN-World Economic Forum net zero. The ACCC would have a heart attack at the anticompetitive proposals being rushed into the energy racket. That’s the real reason this bill seeks to take the Australian Energy Regulator out of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Australians’ power bills will continue to go up, as will the profits of foreign multinational companies involved in the net zero scam. That’s where your money is going. One Nation believes consumers should come before corporations. Ditch the net zero scam and its anticompetitive nonsense—its racket. What proportion of solar and wind complexes do Labor mates and industry super funds own, I wonder? We know it started pretty high with Greg Combet as minister. Labor, stop looking after your mates who own the industrial wind and solar complexes and stop handing over to them billions from taxpayers and electricity consumers. Put Australians first and lower power bills.
I now add two brief comments. Firstly, when states owned electricity generators, energy benefited from a key constitutional tenet that our founding fathers wisely built into our Commonwealth Constitution—competitive federalism, a marketplace in governance between the states. A marketplace in governance is vital for accountability, vital for states’ rights and vital for Australian sovereignty and independence. John Howard’s Liberal-National government destroyed this when it created the so-called national electricity market, which is really a central bureaucratic energy racket, destroying accountability and now lining it up for fleecing Australians to foreign multinationals.
Secondly, I acknowledge over 300 community groups across Australia fighting the rollout of industrial sized wind and solar projects, so-called renewable energy projects. The only thing renewable about them is that they have to be replaced every 15 years. Among many Australians across our country, I recognise Katy McCallum, Steven Nowakowski—what a man!—Grant Piper, Emma Bowman, Bill Stinson, Sandra Burke, Steven Tripp, Andrew Weidemann and Katherine Meyers. These people are for Australia and for the regions and for every Australian. I also recognise Colin Boyce, Llew O’Brien, Ben Abbott, Alex O’Brien, Michaela Humble, Michelle Hunt, Lynette LaBlack and Rafe Champion. This is a list of champions for Australia. I also recognise Neil Kilion, Sasha McNaughton, Caroline Emms, Nikki Kelly, Alex Nichol, Martine Shepherd, Scott Baxter, the Bob Brown Foundation—thank you, Bob!—the IPA, Rainforest Reserves, the Centre for Independent Studies, and Ben Beattie and Aidan Morrison, two giants of the energy sector.
I recognise every person involved in exposing the horrific damage from industrial solar panels and industrial wind turbines, from the growing spaghetti network of high-voltage transmission lines carpeting regional Australia, from the big battery energy storage systems and from hideous, uneconomic, exploitative, environmentally damaging pumped hydro, destroying the fabric of our nation, white-anting the five pillars of our Australian community, our society: productive farmland, the source of our food; rural landscapes; wildlife habitats, our precious natural environment being torn apart by solar and wind and transmission lines; our communities; and our Australian way of life.
To everyone involved, I say thank you. From Lakeland on Cape York to Chalumbin in North Queensland to Central Queensland, Wide Bay and Burnett, southern Queensland, New South Wales Central West, northern New South Wales, southern New South Wales, coastal New South Wales, across Victoria, Tasmania’s Robbins Island and so many more across our wide, beautiful regional Australia, I continue my admiration and continue to pledge my support for your honesty and integrity, your courage, your embracing of accurate data and your informed commitment to putting Australia and Australians first. Thank you very much. We support you as you continue your battle.
Last Friday (6 February 2026), the UN’s Senior Adviser on Information Integrity, Charlotte Scaddan, appeared via teleconference as a witness at the public hearing on “Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy.”
The UN wants to categorise any statement that “undermines” their consensus as misinformation. Yet, when I asked for the logical proof behind their climate claims, she couldn’t provide a specific page number or a shred of empirical data.
It’s alarming that those in charge of “information integrity” at a global level can’t cite the very science they claim exists to silence others.
To claim someone is spreading “misinformation” requires producing objective hard evidence that justifies the claim.
We cannot allow “consensus” or UN-dictated “integrity” to replace real, verifiable science.
I’m still waiting for the specific proof. And have been since 2007.
— Public Hearing | February 2026
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Ms Scaddan, for appearing. It must be about 5.50 pm in New York.
Ms Scaddan: It is, exactly.
Senator ROBERTS: On what basis do you categorise a statement or an action on climate or a climate system as misinformation or disinformation, or lacking in information integrity?
Ms Scaddan: We have very clear scientific consensus around climate change. Anything that is undermining the scientific consensus as laid out by the IPCC and the legal frameworks we have for taking climate action would be considered to be false information. I couldn’t say if it was misinformation or disinformation—that depends.
Senator ROBERTS: To make claims that climate is changing owing to human carbon dioxide, or carbon dioxide from human activity, would you agree that one needs scientific proof?
Ms Scaddan: As I just said, yes; we have the scientific consensus around climate.
Senator ROBERTS: What constitutes scientific proof?
Ms Scaddan: That is not a question I’m going to answer here. As I’ve said several times now, we have very clear scientific consensus around climate change, its causes and its impacts.
Senator ROBERTS: Consensus is a political aspect; scientific proof is the scientific aspect. Isn’t scientific proof simply empirical scientific data within logical scientific points proving cause and effect? Yes or no?
Ms Scaddan: I can’t answer questions about science; it’s not something I’ve studied. But scientific consensus is not political; it refers to 99 out of 100 scientists agreeing on scientific evidence and the interpretation of that. That is my understanding of it, but you’d have to ask the scientists to explain it to you. I’m not one.
Senator ROBERTS: We have amassed 24,000 data sets on energy and climate from around the world— legally. There is no data at all that shows there’s a changing climate, only inherent natural variation in cycles. One what specific basis do you claim climate change? Consensus?
Ms Scaddan: I can point you to the work of the IPCC, which is the UN body, as I’m sure you know, that delivers our scientific evidence and consensus around climate.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m well aware of the IPCC. I’ve read the first five reports. One of my staffers read the sixth and final report. Nowhere in any of those reports is there specific, empirical, scientific data proving logical scientific points and cause and effect. On notice, could you point me to a specific location, chapter number and page number, and the authors, within a report where we have empirical scientific data and logical scientific points proving cause and effect? Just give me one.
CHAIR: I’ll stop proceedings at this point in time. Senator Roberts, we are asking about climate disinformation and misinformation—
Senator ROBERTS: Exactly.
CHAIR: No, we’ve asked Ms Scaddan to come on to talk about a global initiative and a multilateral approach. You’re now going to use your line of questioning around whether climate change is real or not. Please be relevant to the terms of reference, otherwise I’ll rotate the call.
Senator ROBERTS: But this is fundamental to the misinformation.
Senator ANANDA-RAJAH: One nation are a bunch of climate deniers. That’s what this is demonstrating: climate deniers and delayers. Have you not learned your lesson from multiple elections?
CHAIR: Can we all just be respectful—
Senator CANAVAN: I wanted to make a point of order. I think accusations and imputations about other senators are certainly not in order. The inquiry is about climate misinformation, so in terms of your point about the terms of reference, I think a question about whether or not climate change is something to take action on is clearly a threshold issue about whether to take action on misinformation. It’s clearly within the terms of reference.
CHAIR: That’s a substantive issue. You’re not making a point of order.
Senator ROBERTS: Ms Scaddan, have you heard of a man called Maurice Strong? Yes or no?
Ms Scaddan: I don’t believe so. I can’t tell you for sure because I meet a lot of people. CHAIR: Is this relevant to the terms of reference?
Senator ROBERTS: Yes, it is. He used misinformation and disinformation techniques while working within the UN. But you’re not aware of him, so I won’t ask any more questions about it. If someone gets scientific proof then the next thing is to establish a policy basis—correct?
Ms Scaddan: That would be the logical step.
Senator ROBERTS: To set a policy to cut carbon dioxide from human activity, we need to first quantify the specific impact on climate, such as temperature, rainfall, natural weather events, storm frequency, duration and severity per unit of human carbon dioxide. Do you agree?
CHAIR: Senator Roberts, what’s this got to do with misinformation and disinformation? Could you reframe the question like, for example, Senator Canavan did—’Would that be an example of misinformation or disinformation?’ Ms Scaddan’s not here to answer your questions on what is scientifically verifiable or not. She’s here to talk about misinformation.
Senator ROBERTS: I’m not asking her to verify it. I’m just asking her to verify the logic, and she’s done half of it already.
CHAIR: No, this is way outside the terms of reference.
Senator ROBERTS: You’ve got to understand the basis of misinformation and disinformation, Chair.
CHAIR: Why don’t you frame that question that way, then?
Senator ROBERTS: As a basis for understanding comments about climate action, whether or not climate change is real or what aspects of it are, we use scientific proof. We’ve agreed on that. To address climate action and to assess misinformation and disinformation, we need to understand the policy basis. We’ve semi-agreed on that. What is the policy basis? What is the specific impact? I don’t expect you to know it, but point me to a specific location, page number or report that shows the policy basis for climate action.
Ms Scaddan: I’m happy to answer this. If you don’t expect me to know it, it’s a little surprising that you’re asking. However—and I’m sorry to disappoint—I don’t know the specific page, paragraph number or point. But I am happy to follow up and send you the relevant IPCC reports and pages that would give you the scientific consensus on climate.
Senator ROBERTS: Wonderful. Can we just—
CHAIR: This is your last question, Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s great. When you’re replying, Ms Scaddan, please give me the specific page number of the scientific proof which is the empirical scientific data within logical scientific points proving cause and effect and then please give me the specific impact of human carbon dioxide on any climate factor as policy basis. I want specific locations.
The government’s modelling suggests we need 107 million tonnes of carbon sequestration by 2050. By my math, that would mean around 5 million hectares of productive farmland will be swallowed up by trees and woody weeds. When I asked them exactly how many hectares would be lost, the department admitted they don’t have a figure. They are implementing a plan that will devastate our agriculture sector.
Despite the UN Paris Agreement (Article 2(1)(b)) explicitly stating that climate action should not threaten food production, this department hasn’t even sought legal advice on whether their plan breaches that requirement. They are relying on Treasury “scenarios” that claim food production will magically increase by 32%, even while they lock up the land used to grow it.
I asked if they had assessed the combined impact of reforestation and carbon plantings, renewable energy projects (solar/wind) and massive clear felled transmission corridors. The answer was a flat no. They are ignoring the “slow-motion train wreck” of transmission lines and renewables destroying our food bowls because they say it’s “another department’s problem.”
While officials talk about “diversification of enterprise mix” and “market clearing,” I know the truth on the ground. Locking up land leads to explosions in noxious weeds and feral animals, increased management costs for neighbouring properties and the destruction of regional communities and jobs.
My Conclusion: This reckless “plan” is nothing but bureaucratic speak and strategy without a shred of solid data to back it up. They are gambling with Australia’s food security to satisfy an insane, unachievable net-zero agenda.
— Senate Estimates | December 2025
Transcript
CHAIR: Senator Roberts.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing today. The net zero Agriculture and Land Sector Plan commits to 107 million tonnes of carbon dioxide sequestration by 2050. Based on sequestration rates of one to 21 tonnes per hectare, that means at least five million hectares of farmland could be converted to trees and woody weeds. How can you justify this when it risks reducing food production and creating food insecurity for Australians?
Mr Lowe: The Ag and Land Sector Plan doesn’t commit to 107 million tonnes of sequestration. The way I’d characterise that is that that was part of the Treasury modelling which described a particular pathway to achieving net zero, which factored in an amount of sequestration that would be needed in the particular scenario. What the Ag and Land Sector Plan does is identify a range of different options for landholders and farmers to reduce emissions and commit to a number of particular actions in which to achieve that. The first of those is understanding on-farm emissions as a foundational action. The second is around research and innovation, technology being an important factor in supporting farmers to reduce emissions, as it has been. Research and development have been foundational actions to support farmers throughout the course of agriculture in Australia. The third is on-ground action. We know that supporting farmers with the capability and skills that they need to manage their enterprise and reduce emissions is really important. The fourth is around maximising the potential of the land sector.
In relation to that, from our perspective, we think there are significant opportunities for producers to take up diversification of their enterprise mix in relation to land sequestration opportunities. Earlier in this committee, we were talking about soil carbon projects, and soil carbon projects are being explored by a number of participants in the livestock sector. Revegetation, where they’re garnering ACCUs as well. I might leave it there, but we can go into further detail if you’d like.
Senator ROBERTS: So the net zero agriculture and land sector plan does not commit to 107 million tonnes of carbon dioxide sequestration by 2050.
Mr Lowe: No, it doesn’t.
Senator ROBERTS: Is there any sequestration?
Mr Lowe: It acknowledges that sequestration will be an important factor in achieving net zero, and it acknowledges that sequestration is also an important opportunity for producers in terms of diversification of their enterprise mix and diversification of income sources.
Senator ROBERTS: How much of the land under this plan is currently producing food?
Mr Lowe: It’s in the order of 50 to 55 per cent of Australia’s landmass where agricultural production of some form is undertaken. I’ll defer to colleagues as to whether I got that number right.
Dr Greenville: Yes, 55 per cent of Australia’s landmass is currently undertaking agricultural activities.
Senator ROBERTS: What will be the impact of the plan on food production?
Dr Greenville: I think the Treasury projection and the ag and land plan modelling that they conducted—and it’s just a scenario—has agricultural production continuing to increase out to 2050.
Senator ROBERTS: How much of the land is affected, though?
Dr Greenville: They did not provide estimates of the land base—
Senator ROBERTS: Does that bother either of you?
Dr Greenville: Sorry, Senator, maybe as you saw, we’ve mentioned and had a discussion with keen interest with Senator Canavan and Senator McKenzie around this topic. We at ABARES are undertaking some work to explore the implications for the land use.
Senator ROBERTS: Based on the question before you, you’re undertaking that work?
Dr Greenville: Yes. We let the committee know, and there were some interesting questions on notice when we provided some detail around that. I’m happy to talk.
Mr Lowe: To clarify, that work has been ongoing. It was acknowledged in the Treasury modelling that I referred to earlier that ABARES has been undertaking that work.
Senator ROBERTS: Do you just accept Treasury modelling?
Mr Lowe: We provide inputs into Treasury modelling.
Senator ROBERTS: But you haven’t published modelling yourself on the impact on food output. You’re relying on Treasury saying it will increase.
Mr Lowe: As my colleague, Dr Greenville, said, we’re undertaking work in relation to that.
Senator ROBERTS: Based on questions that were put to you today.
Mr Lowe: No, based on work that was already ongoing.
Senator ROBERTS: Even article 2(1)(b) of the UN Paris Agreement requires climate action to avoid threatening food production. Is there any land being locked up under your plan?
Mr Lowe: The ag and land sector plan also acknowledges—and a key tenet of it is—that achieving emissions reduction shouldn’t come at the cost of food security. We would say that the ag and land sector plan is consistent with that acknowledgement that you read out.
Senator ROBERTS: Have you sought legal advice that your plan doesn’t breach the Paris Agreement?
Mr Lowe: The Net Zero Plan and the six sector plans are government plans to be consistent with the Paris Agreement.
Senator ROBERTS: Have you sought legal advice?
Mr Lowe: We have not, as a department.
Senator ROBERTS: How do you know it’s consistent?
Mr Lowe: I think that question may be best directed to DCCEEW, but I’m not aware of legal advice.
Senator ROBERTS: Aren’t you responsible for the plan?
Mr Lowe: We’re responsible for the ag and land sector plan, yes.
Senator ROBERTS: And the impact on the ag sector?
Mr Lowe: Yes. We have not sought legal advice in relation to the ag and land sector plan, and its consistency with the Paris Agreement, to answer your specific question.
Senator ROBERTS: I read that you spent $2.2 million developing the plan, yet you cannot provide a figure, as I understand it, for hectares to be reforested.
Mr Lowe: We don’t have a figure currently; that’s correct.
Senator ROBERTS: How is that acceptable?
Mr Lowe: It’s work in progress.
Senator ROBERTS: How is that a plan?
Mr Lowe: There are a number of elements of the plan, as I mentioned, for foundational actions. Maximising the sequestration potential of the land is one of those.
Senator ROBERTS: I get the carbon dioxide sequestration. I don’t believe in all this crap, because there’s no data to back it up. I believe carbon dioxide sequestration will increase food production, but not if it locks up land—because then you’ve got noxious weeds and feral animals proliferating and going onto neighbouring properties, which increases the cost of managing neighbouring properties. Are you aware of these things?
Mr Lowe: I’d say, consistent with my earlier comments, that there are significant opportunities in carbon sequestration for producers. I’m aware of a number of examples of producers who have put into place plantation forestry on their enterprise and added that to their enterprise mix—so they’ve increased the number of trees on their property. It’s supported an increase in carrying capacity of stocking rates and diversified their income stream by enabling them to undertake forest activities. There’s an example of a New England wool producer, Michael Taylor; he’s got native and pine forest on his enterprise. He’s got a sawmill on his enterprise as well, where he cuts down, saws and processes the timber on his enterprise to sell. One of the benefits he ascribes to that is having an income during leaner years; where he’s got lower stocking rates, he can sell the timber and continue to employ people on his farm.
Senator ROBERTS: Would you like to visit some properties in south-western Queensland that have been locked up, where neighbouring properties are being destroyed?
Mr Lowe: Always open to visiting farmers and properties.
Senator ROBERTS: Will you commit to publishing a hectare estimate before implementing any measures; yes or no?
Mr Lowe: We’re already implementing measures.
Senator ROBERTS: So you don’t know how much land will be locked up?
Mr Lowe: As I’ve said, that work is ongoing but we are already implementing measures in relation to the ag and land sector plan.
Senator ROBERTS: So you’re implementing the plan before the plan is finalised?
Mr Lowe: The plan is finalised.
Senator ROBERTS: But the hectares aren’t.
Mr Lowe: That work is still ongoing.
Senator ROBERTS: CSIRO’s land use trade-offs model shows carbon plantings compete directly with agriculture for land. How will this impact Australia’s food bowls and rural jobs?
Mr Lowe: I’d say it’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach as to how carbon sequestration plays out in the landscape. There will be lots of different ways that land managers and producers decide to take up carbon sequestration opportunities. So I probably wouldn’t characterise things in the way that you have. What I would say is that we think there are opportunities for producers. I also think that, certainly, the types of lands that might be more favourably disposed to carbon sequestration—and ABARES can talk about this in more detail if you like—are the types of lands that are less productive. We would envisage is that we would often see multiple-use land, so land where there’s revegetation happening but also still able to support primary production.
Senator ROBERTS: I know the answer to this question. Have you assessed the combined impact of reforestation, renewable energy projects and transmission corridors on farmland availability?
Mr Lowe: In terms of hectare impact, for example?
Senator ROBERTS: The loss of productive farmland.
Mr Lowe: The answer is no. The work that we have ongoing is particularly in relation to carbon sequestration in the landscape.
Senator ROBERTS: You are not going to consider the renewable energy projects taking up farmland for transmission lines. They’re massive, and the farmers are pretty damn upset about them. People in regional communities, not just farmers, are upset.
Mr Lowe: That is a matter that’s the purview of DCCEEW in terms of renewable energy and transmission. We are interested in understanding the land impact of that and have been working with DCCEEW to understand that better.
Senator ROBERTS: I understand you’re developing a national food security strategy.
Mr Lowe: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: How can that strategy be credible if you don’t know how much farmland will be lost to carbon dioxide sequestration, solar and wind generation or transmission lines?
Mr Lowe: I think the development of the strategy will be taking in multiple perspectives in relation to Australia’s future food security. We received over 400 submissions when we put out a discussion paper recently on Australia’s future food security. I haven’t read those submissions in detail. I imagine some of them might have raised those sorts of issues, so it is something that will be a matter of consideration. Equally of consideration—in fact, something that I understand came through really strongly in the submissions—will be the climate impact on our primary production enterprises and the importance of resilient farming systems as well.
Senator ROBERTS: In your planning and strategising what comes first—data or strategy?
Mr Lowe: We’d like to think that there’s a combination of both, where we can.
Senator ROBERTS: I thought data was the first step to understanding what you’re going to strategise about.
Mr Lowe: Another input is consultation, and we take that really seriously. In the development of the Agriculture and Land Sector Plan, we focused very heavily on consulting and consulting with our state and territory counterparts. We had an issues paper out on the Agriculture and Land Sector Plan. We received a large number of submissions in relation to that. We held a sustainability summit that was auspiced by Minister Bowen and Minister Watt on the Agriculture and Land Sector Plan, and we held a number of roundtables as well with industry stakeholders on the plan.
Senator ROBERTS: Will you integrate land-use change modelling into the food security strategy and publish the findings?
Mr Lowe: We have land-use change modelling on foot. We will publish the findings, and we’re very happy to use it as an input into the food security strategy as well.
Senator ROBERTS: Has DAFF modelled the impact of the Agriculture and Land Sector Plan on agricultural gross domestic product?
Mr Lowe: I’m just trying to think about that.
Dr Greenville: That was part of the modelling that Treasury undertook, and it’s an area where you have quoted that 107 million tonnes from. They have projections as part of that, like the 107 million tonnes, about agricultural production as well as agricultural emissions intensities and so forth. There’s detail in that.
Senator ROBERTS: Have you checked the assumptions on which it’s based or the actual figures?
Dr Greenville: We provided some information to give them the baseline on which they looked at the plan, and they’re quite detailed with what they’ve done in terms of the plan, the assumptions they’ve made and the like, and that’s all been published as part of that result.
Senator ROBERTS: Have you scrutinised it?
Dr Greenville: Obviously, we’ve taken a look. We take a keen interest, which is why—
Senator ROBERTS: ‘Taking a look’ is a bit different from scrutinising.
Dr Greenville: Which is why we’re undertaking our own modelling with the land sector. They pointed out that there was considerable uncertainty in land base sequestration potential and the trade-offs between sequestration and agricultural value. We’ve invested in improving information around regional impacts and trade-offs.
Senator ROBERTS: Treasury assumes agricultural production will rise by about 32 per cent by 2050, but we don’t know how much land is going to be sequestered. How much land is going to be destroyed? How is it possible to get food production increased by 32 per cent if we don’t know the land that will be cut off?
Dr Greenville: Under a market-based approach, sequestration will occur where opportunity costs to agriculture are low. That is not inconsistent with agricultural production continuing to grow while carbon sequestration is added as another land-use activity.
Senator ROBERTS: You’ve raised markets, so that raises carbon dioxide price. What carbon dioxide price is assumed to drive reforestation at the scale required, and will farmers be forced to choose between growing food and earning carbon dioxide credits?
Dr Greenville: That would be an outcome of modelling we haven’t finalised yet, so I don’t want to speculate.
Senator ROBERTS: The plan references alternative proteins. Is DAFF actively promoting lab grown meat as a substitute for real meat?
Mr Lowe: Not actively.
Senator ROBERTS: What assessment has been made of the economic and cultural impact of replacing traditional meat with lab grown alternatives?
Mr Lowe: We haven’t done detailed work on that.
Senator ROBERTS: Chair, this terrifies me. There doesn’t seem to be any data driving the plan. That’s just a statement.
CHAIR: I’ll take that as a statement. Do you have further questions?
