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ARENA hands out $2.15 billion in subsidies to supposedly “cheap” renewables

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We constantly hear that “renewables” are the cheapest and the best way to go. If that’s the case, why does the Australian Renewable Energy Agency need to commit $2.15 billion in subsidies, grants and loans to prop up “renewable” projects?

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for appearing today. The latest figures I have about funds committed, as at June 2022, is $1.86 billion committed across Australia. That is from the 2021-22 annual report. Do you have the most recent figure on what you have committed?

Mr Miller: The most recent figure is $2.15 billion.

Senator Roberts: It’s constantly jammed down Australian throats that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy. Why do you have to commit billions in subsidies to wind and solar if this is the case? If they are so much cheaper, shouldn’t they be able to survive without your subsidies and just simply beat coal and gas in the market?

Mr Miller: ARENA hasn’t given much, if any, support to wind projects, in our history. When ARENA was formed 11 years ago, wind was relatively mature and didn’t need much support. Solar was an industry where Australia had a research advantage and a burgeoning research community, and ARENA stepped into that space and continued providing research funding to solar.

I think it’s entirely appropriate that we aim for lower cost, higher efficiency and more sustainable solar materials. That is what the work that we do supports. In terms of our support for solar, our key program in that respect was in 2016-17 where the intervention that ARENA and the CEFC provided the industry, with $92 million funding to two large-scale solar projects, drove the cost of that technology down from $2.50 a watt to $1.25 a watt following that program to the point where large-scale solar is economic in Australia—and the International Energy Agency says is the cheapest form of electricity generation in history. 

ARENA’s continued support for solar R&D is to create a sustainable, comparative and competitive advantage for Australia in this important technology, to unlock the potential for solar to be that form of ultra low-cost generation to support a giant iron and renewable steel manufacturing capability in Australia and to provide low – cost energy into our industrial system and to our domestic users. We take that responsibility seriously, and we are very excited by the opportunity to continue to support solar PV research, manufacturing and production in Australia to that effect.

Senator Roberts: Could you take on notice to explain in depth the cost structures around solar that you are contributing to at the moment, please? In simple terms, the generating of solar is cheap but, by the time we add the doubling or the tripling of the area needed because of the variability in nature and then you add the battery storage, it’s very, very expensive.

Mr Miller: Senator, I’m not clear what you want me to do.

Senator Roberts: I would like the levelised cost of solar produced electricity equivalent to coal in terms of quantities and reliability?

Mr Miller: I would point you to the good work that the CSIRO has done in collaboration with AEMO in their GenCost analysis, which is thorough analysis by the team at the CSIRO, which shows you the levelised cost of solar on its own and wind on its tone and then adds storage to that, which is a proxy for firming. I would suggest that we would not be able to provide you with any more information than that high-quality work that has been done by the CSIRO.

Senator Roberts: That’s fine; thank you, Mr Miller—because the CSIRO’s assumptions are just woeful. If that’s the best and you term it excellent, we’re in trouble. That’s my view. So thank you for saying that.

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Clean Energy Finance Corporation defends rubbish returns on wind and solar

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The ASX200 is the Australian benchmark for investment returns, if you’re not matching it many people will ask why you even bothered.

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation “invests” your taxes into pipe dream “renewable” projects. We’re told that these investments are some of the best things in finance, in reality I think they are a scam.

My question was simple, if the CEFC is making such good investments, why would putting money into the ASX200 have made a 22% better profit over the last 10 years?

Click here for Transcript

Senator Roberts: At the last Senate estimates, I submitted some questions on notice asking for how the returns for wind and solar investments compare to other financial investments or benchmarks. The CEFC answered very vaguely and essentially said, ‘Depends.’ The number for that question and response is SQ23-000642. In your annual report, you are happy to tout a percentage but not in your answer to me, apparently. In your report you say, since the Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s inception you have achieved an annualised return of 4.48 per cent, which adds up to 55 per cent in total over 10 years. The ASX 200 over the same period has returned 67 per cent. That’s 27 April 2012 to 20 May 2023. An investment in the Australian benchmark would have returned a 22 per cent better profit than the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Why are your investments in supposedly clean energy, which is not clean—just have a look at what happens when heavy metals out of abandoned solar panels get into the water supply or oil from a malfunctioning wind turbine leaks into the ocean—so poor compared to the Australian benchmark?

Mr Learmonth: There are a few things in there. Firstly, that 4.48 that you refer to doesn’t just cover renewable energy of wind and solar, if that’s what’s going to be in your sights; it covers the whole portfolio, and that’s everything from green bonds, loans to industrial companies to reduce emissions, technology investments with venture capital, limited partnership interests in funds in sectors like the built environment, agriculture and infrastructure. So it’s very, very broad. You can’t possibly hone it in just around wind and solar.

The other thing I would note is you’re making the point that our returns appear inadequate or are below what other commercial benchmarks should be. The CEFC’s capital is about driving policy outcomes as well as making appropriate return, so it’s about decarbonising the electricity sector. It’s about fuel switching and energy efficiency. In many cases, we may make a below-market return because that’s what’s needed to bring a project online or take a technology down a learning curve. So I don’t think you can use those very sweeping references to apply to the CEFC.

Senator Roberts: Let me interpret that. You’re saying that the subpar performance is a cost of subsidising government policy objectives?

Mr Learmonth: I wouldn’t put it like that. I would say that if you felt that we weren’t reaching some kind of commercial benchmark, that’s probably a reflection of the way that we are using our capital to deliver on the policy objectives of the CEFC. But, equally, we are a lender. Today 70 per cent, broadly, of our portfolio is debt. So you can’t compare it to an index like the ASX or some ETF or whatever it might be, because a secured loan is a relatively low yielding investment compared to putting money into a technology company where you might expect 25 per cent. So, again, I don’t think we are comparing apples with apples.

Senator Roberts: That’s fair enough. I’m asking for more details, because the response to the question on notice was not detailed and not respectful, in my opinion. It was very vague.

Mr Learmonth: I’m happy to provide you with more information around that and break it down by sectors to demonstrate that and give you a bit more background to the return, the 4.48 that you refer to.

Senator Roberts: Can you take that on notice?

Mr Learmonth: I can do that, very happily.

Senator Roberts: Perhaps something else you could take on notice is: why should Australian taxpayers be giving you the extra $20.5 billion Labor has given you in this budget, given you are not even close to the Australian benchmark. You can explain why you’re not close to the benchmark. That’s fair enough. But why should the Australian taxpayers be giving you an extra $20.5 billion?

Mr Learmonth: I can start, and I’m sure others may have views on this. The money is being appropriated and delivered to the CEFC to help deliver on some very defined policy objectives, like Rewiring the Nation, like Household Energy Upgrades and, thirdly, investing in growing technology companies here in Australia. We were proven to have done a very good job over the last 10 years on investing, lending and using capital to achieve these environmental outcomes. One can only assume that’s why the government was prepared to back us into doing more.

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, obviously you fundamentally don’t believe that it is necessary to reduce carbon emissions.

Senator Roberts: I know so.

Senator McAllister: It is a difference of opinion between you and the Australian government. As I understand it, it is also a difference opinion—

Senator Roberts: Minister, you have repeatedly failed to provide the evidence for your policies.

Senator McAllister: between you and the opposition, as I understand their policy.

Senator Roberts: I think the opposition wouldn’t agree with me.

Senator McAllister: Putting that to one side, having agreed that our policy is to reduce Australia’s emissions, we therefore have to look at the policy levers that are available to us. One of the very successful levers, in my opinion, in the Australian landscape has been the CEFC. It is a different model to one that might conventionally be adopted using grants or direct funding to proponents, and instead seeks to increase financial flows into the clean energy sector, as Mr Learmonth has explained to you. It is one of a number of tools that the Australian government seeks to use to drive investment in the clean energy sector, and it has met that objective.

Senator Roberts: I understand that, but, repeatedly, you have failed to provide the specific effect of human carbon dioxide on any climate factor—temperature, storms, rainfall. You’ve repeatedly failed to provide that basis for policy. The whole thing is just running on fluff.

Let’s continue the questions. I asked you on notice at the last Senate estimates if you had done modelling on what percentage of your returns are attributable to government subsidies and policies. Your answer to me was ‘yes’, as part of your due diligence. It is question No. 2 from the question on notice that I asked before. Question No. 2 says: Have you done any modelling or investigation to find what percentage of these returns are attributable to government subsidies or policies?

Your answer was: All revenue streams are taken into account as part of transaction assessment and due diligence. So your answer to me was to say yes, as part of your due diligence. Given you’ve done that analysis, what percentage of returns for investments are attributable to government subsidies and policies?

Mr Learmonth: I’m just trying to understand your question, Senator. Our returns come from using government dollars—taxpayer dollars—that are either lent or invested by the CEFC. Therefore, using those dollars, we either receive interest or dividends, or, potentially, we might sell an equity investment and make a gain. That’s where our revenue comes from. When you ask what percentage of that is coming from government subsidies, all our capital is coming from the government. All our returns come from the deployment of government capital. I’m just trying to understand what you mean by ‘subsidies’ there.

Senator Roberts: Do you get a return on your investment?

Mr Learmonth: Absolutely—

Senator Roberts: So what percentage—

Mr Learmonth: You inquired about it earlier, and that’s correct.

Senator Roberts: Right. So what percentage of that is due to government subsidies?

Mr Learmonth: Again, I don’t quite understand your question because all our capital is provided by the government. Someone might say, ‘Well, that’s not really a subsidy, it’s a provision of capital from Treasury.’

Senator Roberts: Accept that.

Ms Learmonth: Therefore, we’re not the recipients of subsidies. I might see if my—

Senator Roberts: Let me—

Chair: Mr Learmonth, I wonder if you could, in a very pithy fashion, outline the kind of organisation you are and its intent, because I think the senator has misunderstood that.

Senator Roberts: Perhaps I could clarify something: what part of your returns from your borrowers enables them to succeed because of government subsidies? They wouldn’t have provided a return without those subsidies.

Mr Every: Are you thinking about matters such as the large-scale generation certificates, which the Renewable Energy Target—

Senator Roberts: No, I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about the actual return—the income that a person who is the borrower of your money, or our money, is able to make because of subsidies for solar and wind.  Without those subsidies, would you have got a return?

Mr Learmonth: Oh, so you’re referring to, say, a household subsidy for having solar panels, for example—

Senator Roberts: More to the point: you don’t lend to households, I take it?

Mr Learmonth: We do via intermediaries; we actually do. We use—

Senator Roberts: But most of your lending is to large—

Mr Learmonth: Yes, a substantial portion is to large projects, large companies. That’s part of it, but we also use intermediaries and partners like large Australian banks, for example, to provide mortgages for people to stimulate people to make their houses more energy efficient or to buy a more efficient home. They might access a green mortgage, so there’s a very broad range of borrowers. They pay back the loans out of the money that they’re generating in their business. That might be a small manufacturing company, it might be an agricultural company, or it might be a solar farm. Whether they are entitled through their businesses to subsidies, discounts or benefits through state and federal governments, one can only speculate about that.

Senator Roberts: Your mission and values say that the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is a specialist investor with a deep sense of purpose to invest as Australia’s green bank to help achieve our national goal of net zero emissions by 2050. How many of your borrowers make a return because of government subsidies for solar and wind? In other words, without those subsidies, you would not be getting a return.

Ms Learmonth: I’m not sure about that. Let’s talk about a solar or wind farm. We may lend them money to help them build out the generation plant, the wind turbines, the solar panels, for example. They either sell the electricity into the spot market, or they might have a contracting arrangement, so they generate income through that. Yes, a large utility-scale renewables project will also receive a generation certificate, a renewable certificate, which traces its way back to a different government policy, the RET, Renewable Energy Target, so some component of the income of a renewable energy project does come through a former government policy. But the majority of income comes from the sale of those electrons either to someone who wants them or into a market like the NEM spot market. They make that money, and, if we’re the senior lender, we’re the first person they’ll pay.  They’ll pay us back interest and principal through those revenues.

Senator Roberts: Do you have any idea why, when we’re told that solar and wind are now the cheapest form, we still need subsidies?

Mr Learmonth: We know that wind and solar, based on the cost of it and what they can produce, is today the lowest cost of energy.

Click here for Transcript

Senator Roberts: You told me in the answers to questions on notice that you’ve done the analysis. Now you’re telling me that we can only speculate on what those businesses are receiving in terms of subsidies that contribute to your returns. What is it?

Mr Learmonth: I guess I’m just trying to use some examples to try and flesh out what you mean by subsidies. Are they subsidies that are being provided to our borrowers?

Senator Roberts: Yes. You understand their money streams. What is the proportion of subsidies in there?  In other words, the government is paying to help you get a return on your loans.

Mr Learmonth: In some cases there are companies we have lent to that are recipients of state government benefits. And for some reason they might—

Senator Roberts: The point is you’re investing in something that needs subsidies to survive, so we’ve got the government giving money under a loan and then relying upon other subsidies, from the same taxpayers—maybe state, maybe federal—to get a return back.

Mr Learmonth: Just in terms of wind and solar, even if you backed out the subsidy around the generation certificate, they would in most cases still be able to pay their debt. We don’t come up with the subsidies. We are there looking at projects and companies—

Senator Roberts: I’m not accusing you of coming up with the subsidies. I’m saying that your borrowers cannot pay it back without those subsidies.

Mr Learmonth: I don’t think that’s right.

Senator Roberts: Could you give me the figures that show that, please? You’ve said you’ve got the analysis.

Mr Learmonth: The only borrowers that we have where a part of their direct revenue source or generation may have some form of government subsidy is probably wind and solar, because they are recipients, but there are other ones that have no government subsidies.

Senator Roberts: Let’s move on to something that’s associated, because you don’t know the income streams. I also asked you in Senate estimates, on notice, what the risk to wind and solar investments was from a change in government policy. You didn’t answer what the risk was. You just said that you have assessed the risk, like any prudent investor.

I asked: Political risk is one of the most basic elements of a assessing a business case. What is the risk to wind and solar investments if the government were to abandon their net-zero policy?  Which some jurisdictions around the world are discussing right now. The answer I got was: The question is a hypothetical but suffice to say, like any prudent investor, the CEFC undertakes due diligence into risks to any revenue stream, and structures its investments to ensure that it is not unduly exposed to risk, including policy risk. If you have assessed the risk, what is the risk?

Mr Learmonth: What is the risk of a government abandoning—

Senator Roberts: Financial risk—what is the risk to your loan?

Mr Learmonth: It’s hard to speculate. We would look—

Senator Roberts: But you’ve assessed it.

Mr Learmonth: Yes, because we would have looked at it and we would have gone: What sort of generation would this wind or solar farm produce? Do we estimate that power prices over the term of our loan—it might be five years; it might be seven years—will introduce some element of risk to those cash flows? And then we would have looked at whether or not our debt could be paid back. If a future government changed policies around net zero, it would take some while before that potentially would have any impact. I think it’s not a risk that we would be factoring into it, because we’re looking at the more immediate and realistic options.

Senator Roberts: You’ve said you’ve done your due diligence but you can’t put a handle on the risk. I put it to you that the government abandoning net zero targets would be catastrophic for your investments. Without targets, there are no subsidies, and the generators couldn’t produce a return and pay back the loan.

Senator McAllister: Senator Roberts, I think the problem with the line of questioning you’re pursuing with Mr Learmonth is that you assume that investments in the National Electricity Market are driven by subsidies, which you have not identified. All over the world renewable energy is increasing because of its technological advantages and because of the cost profile of alternatives—

Senator Roberts: Hydrocarbons after—

Senator McAllister: May I finish?

Senator Roberts: Yes.

Senator McAllister: Particularly where either the overall demand in an electricity system is growing or assets need to be replaced. I think you have repeatedly mischaracterised Mr Learmonth’s answers to you and then put the question back to him in a form that misrepresents the position he has just put to you. To be fair to the officer, he is doing a good job at describing to you the processes that the CEFC go through in examining investment opportunities.

Senator Roberts: Well, combining what you’ve said—

Chair: Senator Roberts, I’m going to have to make this your last question.

Senator Roberts: I’ll move on. I note that, as you said in those same answers, you don’t screen any investments for connections to political donations. Don’t you think that some basic due diligence is needed?  Shouldn’t you be bringing it to the attention of the minister if you are about to give a company hundreds of millions of dollars and it has made a political donation?

Mr Learmonth: We undertake very significant due diligence on all our borrowers or investee companies. We would look at whether there was some overt political connection—

Mr Every: We’re actually required to under the AML/CTF laws, the anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing laws. We are required to identify politically exposed persons, and that is part of the due diligence.

Senator Roberts: Senator McAllister, in response to your comments: the world has globally invested trillions of dollars—I think the figure may be $150 trillion, but I may be wrong on that—and the share of energy used on the planet from hydrocarbons has gone from 82 per cent to 81 over the last 10 to 20 years, despite trillions of dollars going into solar and wind.

Chair: I’ll take that one as a comment.

Senator Roberts: Yes. It’s not a question; it’s a fact.

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Labor and the Greens have decided you have too much stuff

This week the Safeguard Mechanism Bill will pass after a dodgy Labor deal with the Greens and David Pocock.

More than 200 of the largest companies in this country will have to cut their production. There’ll be less electricity, less essential goods and they’ll all be more expensive.

Just remember, you are the carbon they want to reduce.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Australia and particularly Queensland, I speak on the Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting Amendment) Bill 2023. Here we go again! Once more, the Labor government is putting a Liberal-National climate policy on steroids in a race to see how quickly both of them can destroy our beloved country to appease their globalist masters.

Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese are building, in this bill, on the safeguard mechanism that Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt introduced in 2015. This bill establishes a new form of carbon credits—or, more correctly, carbon dioxide credits, or, more correctly, a carbon dioxide tax—naming them safeguard mechanism credit units, or SMCs. You might ask: what is a safeguard mechanism credit unit defined as? Is it nine cow farts worth? Ten burps? The entire concept of counting carbon dioxide emissions is a scam; it’s a fraud. While we can poke fun at the scam, the lack of detail in this bill is incredibly serious. Do not let the title fool anyone. The definition of a safeguard mechanism credit is not in the bill. If the parliament passes this bill, we’ll just have to trust the minister or some bureaucrat to tell us later.

The biggest producers of goods in this country will be told to cut their production of carbon dioxide, with the amount not defined in the bill. It may be 4.9 per cent a year. If they don’t, they’ll be forced to buy undefined carbon dioxide credits—an undefined carbon dioxide tax. I use the word ‘producers’ deliberately because this bill will apply to companies in this country that actually make something—or what’s left of them. Because they’ve been forced to buy carbon dioxide credits, these companies will be forced to make less of the things they make and be forced to make them more expensive. It doesn’t matter what fancy scheme the government wants to dress this up as; it is a carbon dioxide tax. It’s a tax on production, and we all know that whenever we tax something we get less of it.

Take a look around at everything you have right now—your phone, your house, your car. If you want a new one in the future, or more things for your children, too bad; the Labor government has decided Australians have too much already and what’s left will only be for the rich, who can afford it. The Greens will smear and label me again for simply telling the truth, yet I believe we should come to parliament to make Australia prosper—not force unnecessary scarcity to appease the sun gods and the climate carpetbaggers. That’s the general rule that should be followed for a prosperous Australia: do what’s in the national interest.

Let’s look at the globalists. This legislation is not in Australia’s interest. Gutless politicians are doing it all to satisfy unelected and unaccountable foreign organisations. All of Australia’s climate legislation has abundant references to satisfying our international commitments, including the UN’s Kyoto protocol, the UN’s Paris Agreement, the UN Agenda 21, UN 2050 net zero and so on and on, with the UN World Economic Forum alliance. The creators of these international agreements are unelected and unaccountable. These foreign bureaucrats believe the prosperity of Australians should come second to their desire to transfer wealth from our people into the hands of predatory billionaires. Don’t be fooled. While this supposedly green pipedream dresses itself as virtuous, the billionaires of the world have untold amounts invested in wind, solar, batteries, green hydrogen and other scams in which they demand a return. Having predictably failed in the free market, they must now hijack international organisations to pressure governments into the forced uptake of their failed investments. With such large amounts of money at stake, the billionaires can afford to buy guns for hire at many different levels.

The teal Independents—Monique Ryan, Allegra Spender, Zoe Daniel, Kylea Tink, Sophie Scamps and Zali Steggall—all peculiarly made submissions to the consultation paper for this bill, arguing it should go even further. Did they declare their clear conflicts of interest? Collectively, the teals received millions of dollars from Climate 200 for their election campaign. Climate 200’s principal donor, Simon Holmes a Court, has massive investments in wind, solar, battery and hydrogen scams. He, along with many other climate billionaires, will benefit hugely from this bill’s passage. It seems the teals’ calls for transparency don’t apply to them and donations aren’t dirty if they come from ‘sugar daddy and carpetbagger’ Holmes a Court. Equally, in this debate I hope Senator David Pocock declares the same conflict of interest that arises from Climate 200’s donations to his campaign, making him a teal. This bill allows the climate billionaires to harvest taxpayer money through their scams like carbon capture, locking up productive farms and other cons. What schemes will be entitled to harvest taxpayer money? What will be the criteria for being accepted? What integrity checks will be in place? Nothing.

Some years ago, Euro poll stated ’95 per cent of Europe’s carbon dioxide trading is tainted with corruption’. Nothing in this bill has the answers. We just have to wait for a minister or a bureaucrat to tell us later, after the Senate has passed the bill, giving them incredible power. We do know that the safeguard mechanism credits will be defined as ‘eligible international emissions units’, meaning they will be able to be traded overseas, globally. As even the Australian Financial Markets Association noted during consultation: ‘There is no good reason for making the credits internationally trade-able’—other than perhaps helping the globalist billionaires suck the country dry.

Let’s look at the carbon dioxide credits whitewash. There are too many problems with this bill to fully address in just 15 minutes. We can’t let that time pass, though, without acknowledging one of the greatest exercises in political whitewashing this parliament has seen—the Chubb carbon dioxide credits review. Australian National University environmental law professor and expert, Professor Andrew Macintosh, said Australia’s carbon market is a fraud on the environment, suffers from a distinct lack of integrity and is potentially wasting billions of dollars in taxpayer’s money. In response to this scathing criticism of the integrity of the carbon dioxide credit system, energy minister Chris Bowen rushed to appoint a panel to review the integrity of carbon dioxide credits, an independent panel, supposedly, but how independent can a government-appointed panel really be?

People will be shocked. The government appointed a somehow independent panel and claimed there was nothing to see here. It made a few superficial recommendations and gave the carbon dioxide credit industry a great big fat tick. As Macintosh responded on January 2023: ‘The review panel acknowledge the scientific evidence criticising the carbon credits scheme,’ but says, ‘It was also provided with evidence to the contrary yet it did not disclose what that evidence was or what it relates to. The public is simply expected to trust that the evidence exists.’ That is an environmental professor seeing right through this. What are they hiding? The Chubb review was a complete sham, designed to give a scam-filled industry a green tick of health to pave the way for this bill. With Ian Chubb’s whitewash review conveniently in place, Labor has given itself permission to rush this bill through, while the scientists who originally raised the integrity issues scream that none of the protests have been addressed. Chubb has repeatedly taken money from Liberal-National and Labor-Greens federal governments to peddle unfounded, false and scary claims. He is a paid gun for hire to push the government line.

Next let us consider the fact, the fact, that we are already at net zero. Why do we need a carbon dioxide credit scheme anyway? As I explained to this chamber in September last year, Australia is already at net zero. Where is the confetti, the streamers, the champagne, the celebrations? Taken directly from clause 4 of the Paris agreement, and as Assistant Minister McAllister in the debate of the climate change bill said:

Net zero is a balance between human production of emissions and removal of those emissions by environmental sinks.

Our country has so many forests that Australia already sequesters or sinks three times more carbon dioxide than we produce. Then when you consider the fact that we are entirely surrounded by oceans, it is even more so. Even to people foolishly believing Australia needs to carry out the net zero kamikaze mission, on net zero we are already the world’s heroes without doing a damn thing.

Let us look at the delegated powers. While the entire concept on which this bill is based is flawed, the way it operates seems to be even worse. The Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting) Amendment Bill 2022 is a shell containing little detail about how the largest producers, manufacturers and resource companies will be regulated. Instead, the bill places huge power in the minister, with out-of-touch federal bureaucrats in the Canberra bubble left to later fill in the detail.

To my colleagues in this chamber: I urge you to please think carefully about the process this bill implements. This is not a vote on some companies cutting production by five per cent—4.9 per cent, five per cent; that number is not even in this bill. It is another ministerial power to decide. This is a bill to give the minister a blank cheque for who this policy will apply to, how much they will be forced to cut, how quickly they will be forced to do it and much, much more.

While some people may consider the current proposal reasonable and proportionate, this nearly unlimited power will almost certainly be abused in the future. Almost all of this policy will be made via legislative instrument, an executive dictate from the minister. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Senate granting this wide-open power over some of the most significant changes to our economy is unconscionable. The design of this bill to minimise parliamentary scrutiny—the deliberate design of this bill to minimise parliamentary scrutiny—spits in the face of the parliament, spits in the face of democracy and spits in the face of the Australian people who you are meant to serve in this chamber.

Let’s think about the consultation. Predictably, we can assume that Labor will—wrongly—assure us that they have consulted widely on this bill. Just like we saw the Treasurer wanting to ‘start a conversation’ about tearing down the economic fabric of our country, Labor’s consultation process is a sham designed to give them cover for doing whatever they please. To consult means actually listening. Labor has no intention of listening. Numerous stakeholders noted the staggered release of the draft bill, the legislative instruments and the Chubb review. Combined, these steps limited the ability to consider the implications of the proposed reforms. How can Labor claim to have consulted, when many of the detailed operational elements of this entire policy are contained in legislative instruments which do not yet exist? How could anyone be consulted on those legislative means? That’s not unusual for Labor.

The bill is unfounded. It is damaging for Australia—it is suicidal—and it is we the people who will pay. One Nation opposes this bill and, if passed, will work to unwind it and tear down the global climate scam that drives this bill.

I want to make a couple more comments—basic questions. Why are China and India not doing what this Labor-Greens-teal-Pocock coalition government is doing? Why is Russia not doing it? Why are we punishing Australian families, employers and workers? Why can the other countries have the benefit of our high-quality coal and gas, hydrocarbon fuels, yet we cannot? Think about the primacy of energy; it’s in everything. We’re killing our productive capacity and our children’s future.

Secondly, the costs of the Labor-Greens-teal-Pocock bill are extraordinarily high. Why are we punishing Australian employers and families? Remember that primacy of energy. That will see prices skyrocketing continually.

Thirdly, there’s no justification in science for cutting carbon dioxide from human activity—no empirical scientific data, no logical scientific points to back this up. I’ve asked them, and they’ve repeatedly run. There’s no specific quantified effect of carbon dioxide from human activity, none at all. There’s conclusive evidence from two global experiments that overwhelmingly prove that cutting carbon dioxide from human activity has no effect. In 2009 and 2020 we had global recessions, almost depressions, and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued to increase, despite dramatic cuts in carbon dioxide from human activity. It’s pointless. Nature alone determines the level of carbon dioxide. Humans have no effect.

Let’s ask the fourth question. Why are we following in the footsteps of crooks? The father of global warming was senior UN bureaucrat and oil billionaire Maurice Strong. He morphed it into climate change, climate apocalypse and climate breakdown. He was involved in the UN food-for-oil scandal. He was involved in corruption in the water systems of the western United States. He exiled himself in China, running away from the American police. He formed the UN’s climate body that is really a political body. He was the director and founder of the Chicago Climate Exchange, aiming to make billions of dollars trading carbon dioxide credits, like Al Gore’s company, Generation Investment Management. The whole thing is a scam to make billionaires richer, and you in Labor and you in the Greens are following in the footsteps of a crook, Maurice Strong.

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Bills go up $1,150 a month under Labor

No you’re not going crazy, life is getting far too expensive.

It’s not going to get any better. Albanese is pouring fuel on the fire, putting more of your taxes into green projects that will make your electricity bill more expensive.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people across Queensland who make up our amazing Queensland community, I’m speaking to Senator Canavan’s matter of public importance motion. This MPI quite fairly criticises the Albanese Labor government for their record of promises already broken, including a promise not to raise taxation and a promise not to change superannuation.

The Prime Minister is now raising tax on unrealised earnings of large superannuation funds. Way to go! Labor are running a two-for-one sale on broken promises, just in time for the New South Wales state election, where 5½ million voters are going to ask themselves: ‘Do I trust Labor with government? Will they keep their promises?’ 

To be fair, the Albanese government has not resorted to dividing promises into core and non-core promises—yet. But wait; it’s early days. Their promise to bring down the cost of living is already broken. Today, Brisbane’s Courier Mail newspaper reported that an average household in Queensland now has to spend an additional $1,150 a month to pay their bills and keep a roof over their head. That is a hell of a lot of money for everyday Australians to find every month.

The Labor government is wrongly trying to blame international pressures for gas price rises. Gas was already increasing rapidly before the Ukraine conflict. The gas price rise has nothing to do with war between countries and everything to do with the war on coal. As the government closes down energy-intensive coal power and introduces more weather dependent solar and wind power, the grid needs more and more gas to firm the supply and maintain reliable power. 

Household gas is costing more as large electricity generators bid in the market for the gas they need to keep the electricity grid functioning. Increasing gas prices are demand inflation. Housing price rises are demand inflation. Four hundred thousand new Australians arrived in the last 12 months—$400,000—all needing houses in which to live. Of course the price was going to rise. No wonder the Albanese government changed their election promise from ‘cheaper power’ to ‘power going up less quickly’.  

Every coolroom in every farm and dairy, and every Coles store and every other supermarket is now more expensive to run. Every bakery, restaurant, butcher, store and shopping centre is passing on huge increases in power prices. Mortgage repayments are rising because the previous government’s money printing caused increasing interest rates. Labor went right along with those measures and is equally to blame for the inflation that that’s now caused.

Last week, Treasurer Jim Chalmers recklessly, wrongly, uncaringly, claimed the worst of inflation is over. Really? On what basis? New South Wales voters should not believe that for a moment. Inflation is a direct result of this government’s core energy and spending policies.

And this government is not going away until 2025.  

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CSIRO manipulate assumptions to make wind and solar look cheap

Politicians often point to a CSIRO document called GenCost22 that claims wind and solar are the cheapest forms of energy. In reality however, their model has more holes than a block of Swiss cheese.
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Net-Zero means strip mining the sea floor for rare earths

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The Earth simply doesn’t have enough of the rare earth materials used in batteries and net-zero products to reach net-zero.

That’s even when you take into account the materials gained from strip mining the ocean floor and covering the surrounding ecosystem in silt.

One Nation supports real environmental protection, not the environmental destruction the UN net-zero is pushing.

Transcript

Unreliable, weather-dependent solar and wind power has put a price tag on our oceans. The phrase ‘blue economy’ is used to soften the ugly truth that, to achieve Australia’s transition to net zero, the world’s oceans must be strip-mined for rare-earth minerals. Batteries, solar panels and wind turbines are produced in China, in part using materials that companies, mostly Chinese, mine from the sea floor. Polymetallic nodules needed for solar panels, wind turbines and batteries lay along active volcanic rifts mostly found on the seabed. Giant vacuums suck up the seabed ecosystem to bury and choke the surrounding area in a thick layer of silt. Animals, eggs, sediment, plants—everything is taken off the seabed.

A Greenpeace research fellow, distressed with what was being done, said:

In all cases, seabed mining will, by its very nature, destroy species and habitats within the mining zones. There is no justification for a ‘gold rush’ to mine the seabed …

International waters, particularly in the Pacific, contain more value than the combined mineral wealth of Earth’s continents.

The Pacific is ground zero for this green rush, with China holding the majority of licences that the United Nations International Seabed Authority handed out. The UN International Seabed Authority supports undersea mining because it aligns with the UN’s 2030 so-called—and bogus— Sustainable Development Goals. The former head of the Office of Environmental Management and Mineral Resources at the UN International Seabed Authority is on record saying that the UN International Seabed Authority is ‘not fit to regulate any activity in international waters’ in part due to a perceived conflict of interest with mining giants. Corporations are in control, and, on behalf of those corporations, climate warriors are destroying everything they touch. Explain that to our children. We are one community, we are one nation, and we want our oceans protected from crazy climate warriors.

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Climate talk-fest not coming to Australia is a win!

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If Climate Change talk-fest COP doesn’t want to come to Australia that’s their loss. We’ll keep our abundant protein-rich red meat, delicious range of seafood, cheap and reliable coal-fired power, huge gas reserves and efficient petrol and diesel cars. Let COP eat their bugs in the dark while they wait for their electric vehicles to charge.

Transcript

Great news, Vanuatu still exists.

Experts told us it would now be underwater due to global warming and rising sea levels. Just like Al Gore forecast Mount Kilimanjaro would have no snow by 2016.

How many islands has Vanuatu lost due to rising sea levels? None. Mount Kilimanjaro is still topped with icy white powder.

Maybe that’s why it’s now called climate change instead of global warming?

I thank the Australian Greens for this breaking news that Vanuatu’s climate minister would only back Australia’s bid to host the 2026 Conference Of Parties, COP, if Australia doesn’t commit to any new coal or gas projects.

With that headline the solution is clear.

Australia must immediately fund and build as many coal and gas projects as humanly possible so there’s no chance we’ll have to host the expensive UN-WEF talk fest for climate elites, the 2026 COP.

What is the COP?

The UN’s Conference Of Parties involves millionaires, billionaires and politicians bouncing around the world in fuel-guzzling private jets to luxurious locations.

Gorging themselves on prime beef while preaching to we lowly peasants to reduce our carbon dioxide footprint, stop flying, stop driving and stop eating red meat.

If the 2026 COP was hosted in Australia, taxpayers would be forking out for the UN’s globalist elite talk fest.

We’d be paying for them to tell us to destroy our energy grid and commit economic suicide to appease the sun gods.

If COP doesn’t want to come to Australia that’s their loss. We’ll keep our abundant protein-rich red meat, delicious range of seafood, cheap and reliable coal-fired power, huge gas reserves and efficient petrol and diesel cars.

Let COP eat their bugs in the dark while waiting for their electric vehicles to charge.

We have one flag. We are one community. We are one nation.

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Wind turbines are environmental vandals

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I remember when greenies hugged trees. Now greenies chop down trees and hug manufactured wind turbines made of concrete, steel, fibreglass and gearbox oil. 40 million tonnes of wind turbine blades destined for landfill by 2050. Wind power isn’t renewable.

Transcript

There’s nothing more galling than the sight of a 100 metre wind turbine slumped over. A smouldering aluminium & concrete corpse testament to wind power’s stupidity.

Even if a wind turbine fibreglass blade makes it through a 12 year operating life, the blade is still a global waste catastrophe.

Every year, Europe already adds 2 million blades filling landfills.

At the same time that we declared plastic straws an environmental sin, our beautiful planet has 40 million tonnes of wind turbine blades destined for landfill by 2050.

Every blade of every wind turbine installed to 2030 will be in a landfill by 2050.

So-called renewables need to be renewed every 10-15 years.

We’re not building our net-zero, nature-dependent generation once. We’re doing it twice over. Or three times. With all the waste this will bring.

This is environmental vandalism, killing the environment in the name of saving it.

I remember when greenies hugged trees. Now greenies hug manufactured goods composed of concrete, steel, fibreglass and gearbox oil. Greenies are resource hogs.

Recycling wind turbine blades is not impossible. It just takes a huge amount of energy for which coal is the optimum fuel. That’s why, without affordable coal energy, wind turbine blades and solar panels are dumped not recycled.

German wind farms kill 100,000 birds a year and unlike those killed in cities, these birds tend to be endangered species due to the location of turbines.

New model turbines are approaching 240 metres in height with blades close to 120 metres.

That will need a big hole to bury.

This is not ‘free’ energy and it certainly is not ‘renewable’.

Governments should not ‘force’ a technological transition. If wind technology was any good it would not be reliant on subsidies of $500,000 per turbine per year.

Real transitions – those that serve to benefit our community – happen naturally through market forces because they have natural economic or social advantages that meet people’s real needs.

We are one community, we are one nation and the United Nations & World Economic Forum’s net-zero is environmental vandalism.

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PM abandons promise to cut power bills by $275

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While PM Albanese wants electricity-grid wrecking net-zero, he will never be able to deliver his promised $275 cheaper power bills. That’s why he has had to walk away from his first election promise already.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I support Senator Payne’s matter of public importance. Prime Minister Albanese’s promise to reduce electricity bills by $275 and his promise to reduce carbon dioxide output by 43 per cent are mutually exclusive. High energy prices will reduce energy usage and assist Australia to reach the 43 per cent figure. Lower prices will increase energy consumption, and that will work against the Albanese government’s target. That’s why the Albanese government so quickly ran away from his promise. The Prime Minister never intended to honour the promise, making his action cynical political expediency.

One Nation believes any attempt to implement a 43 per cent carbon dioxide reduction is a policy based on lies and distortions which do not stand up to rigorous scrutiny. Prime Minister Albanese has already signalled, across several issues, his government will be a government based on virtue signalling, not a sensible policy. For senators with no data on their side, the only option is to sell a policy on feelings. Feelings will not keep the lights on, supermarket freezers cold or hospitals open. Feelings will not warm Australians in winter or cool us in summer. Evidence based policy will. Energy deficits in several areas of Australia have already caused blackouts. The 43 per cent target will cause many more blackouts.

Rapidly increasing electricity costs will reduce consumption of electricity and buy the government time, while it asks around for a permanent solution, which is why the government is allowing this to happen. Closing down and sabotaging baseload coal has led to the national electricity racket—sorry market—showing unprecedented wholesale power prices. The average spot price of $264 per megawatt hour last quarter is more than triple the average spot price of $85 per megawatt hour this time last year. Prime Minister Albanese knew this when he made his promise, and clearly economics is not the Prime Minister’s strong suit. If the cost of an item is up 300 per cent, the chances of being able to make it cheaper without the government paying for it are zero.

Perhaps the Prime Minister can extend his employment talkfest to more aspects of government business. Let’s see if anyone knows how to use wind and solar to replace baseload coal and save Australia from electricity and energy Armageddon, because all I’m hearing so far is, ‘Build more wind and solar.’ Building more will simply add more capacity when we don’t need it, during the day, when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. Solar and wind will need to be paired with some form of battery technology to move that generated electricity from the day, when we don’t need it, to the evening, when we do.

Coal sitting in hoppers ready to generate power on demand is the battery we have used successfully for 120 years. Alternatives to coal are thin on the ground. Battery storage costs are staggering and unsustainable: $1.5 million per megawatt hour. We need around 60,000 megawatt hours of energy in storage to ensure any 24-hour period is not subject to blackouts, yet batteries need 20 per cent above rated capacity to achieve full charge due to heat loss, which is why they catch fire a lot. This means we need 72,000 megawatt-hours of storage, at a cost of $108 billion every 12 years, the life of a big Tesla battery. That is $9 billion every year. The Snowy 2 big hydro battery currently under construction will provide 1,000 megawatt-hours daily for 365 a year at a cost of $5 billion. This means that pumped hydro will cost $300 billion to carry enough power for just one day. Of course, adding electric vehicle charging to the mix means a whole lot more blackouts and a whole lot more electricity price increases.

Net zero is an unaffordable fairy tale that will destroy our standard of living and destroy our lifestyle. We are one community, we are one nation and we know what the hell is needed to get back to affordable, reliable, stable electricity.

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Wind and solar cannot solve high power prices and inflation

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Alan Finkel is right when he says we are at a turning point in history. There are two paths for Australia to choose between. One leads to a country where manufacturing thrives and everyone, including the poor, enjoys better living standards on the back of affordable and reliable power. On the other, power prices continue to rise, and the stability of our grid is at risk.

With the highest amount of wind, solar and battery power feeding into the grid in history, Australia’s wholesale power prices have never been higher. All Australians are going to feel the brunt of these price increases. This is a primary cause of our current inflation and it will only get worse, as I have been warning for two years.

Despite net-zero rhetoric, there is an unavoidable truth. Wind and solar cannot solve high power prices and inflation.

Committing to net-zero means that  Government has signed a blank cheque to the wind, solar and battery industry whose only solution is more of the same power shortages and high prices.

For example, the closure of the Liddell coal fired power station will be a loss of 2000MW of dispatchable power.

With unreliable renewables operating on average at 23% of their rated capacity because wind and solar take days off, Australia will need hundreds of square kilometres of solar panels to replace Liddell.[1]

Those hundreds of square kilometres of panels, even running at full capacity, won’t guarantee power is being made when needed. Solar power peaks at midday, far away from the peak demand in the early morning and evening. Wind droughts lasting months have wreaked havoc in Europe.[2] Batteries cannot and won’t fix the gap.

The largest battery in Australia can supply 300MW for an hour and a half, a pittance compared to the 2000MW Liddell could produce.[3] That’s even before we consider that because of transmission and power conversion, battery storage might waste around 20% of the power we use to charge them.[4]

What does all this mean? Wind and solar subsidies force other, more reliable sources of power out of the market. Coal generators are forced into early retirement. Nuclear can’t even be investigated.

Wind and solar are inefficient and intermittent. There is less supply of electricity and it is more unreliable. That makes power more expensive and risky for businesses, employers and wage-earners.

Wind, solar and battery advocates claim that a ‘plan to transition the grid’ can solve all this. What is rarely said is that the plan to ditch coal could cost $320 billion, a cost that one way or another Australians will have to pay from their hip pocket.[5]

Australia is facing down the barrel of a cost of living and inflation crisis. We must abandon the ill-advised forced uptake of wind and solar that is going to keep making power bills more expensive.

Instead, we must stop demonizing coal and build coal fired power stations to cover our transition. Power companies must know that the government won’t force coal to go broke so they can freely invest to maintain their existing assets and build more.

Wherever possible we must build dams with hydro power and retro fit hydro. Snowy Hydro 2.0 has laid bare the false promises of pumped hydro.[6]

And finally, we must investigate nuclear power. Australia has had a nuclear reactor running in Lucas Heights, Sydney since 1958.[7] Australia’s ban on nuclear power is no longer fit for purpose. Everything must be on the table to be investigated if it means bringing Australia’s power bills down.

Although electricity from nuclear is typically more expensive than coal and hydro, in places such as South Australia with its massive uranium reserves and low thermal value coal, nuclear needs to be considered.

It may be years before some of these solutions take effect, but it will be even longer if we do not start them now. Decades of politicians making decisions for the next election instead of the next generation has left Australia with this cost of living and inflation crisis. We must act today with a vision for the future, rooted in reality and with the sole focus of making Australian living cheaper and easier while being environmentally responsible.

[1] For example, 1800Mw Liddell output at 90%, 10-30% capacity factor of solar, estimated 2-3ha (0.02-.03sqkm) per MW of solar power

[2] https://theconversation.com/what-europes-exceptionally-low-winds-mean-for-the-future-energy-grid-170135

[3] https://www.energy-storage.news/victorian-big-battery-australias-biggest-battery-storage-system-at-450mwh-is-online/#:~:text=The%20Victorian%20Big%20Battery%2C%20a,for%20the%20state%20of%20Victoria.

[4] https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1y&interval=1w Battery (Charging) vs. Battery (Discharging)

[5] https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/why-it-will-cost-320b-to-ditch-coal-in-three-maps-and-a-chart-20220608-p5as3t

[6] https://www.smh.com.au/national/five-years-on-snowy-2-0-emerges-as-a-10-billion-white-elephant-20220310-p5a3ge.html

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Flux_Australian_Reactor

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