Posts

I questioned the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment & Water (DCCEEW) about a recent report from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO). The report was critical of the department.

The report from ANAO on Governance of Climate Change Commitments states that the DCCEEW CANNOT demonstrate the extent to which specific policies and programs have contributed, or are expected to contribute towards emissions reduction.

We are turning our entire economy upside down to chase this net-zero lunacy and no one can even say if it’s going to do anything.

Even though it was reported that the department agreed with all five ANAO recommendations, the Minister and staff, in response to my estimates’ questioning, said that they do not agree with ANAO’s findings and read out a long list of projections and guestimates.

I asked again for evidence of human-induced climate change and was told the government is committed to the United Nations 2050 Net Zero. I will continue asking about a cost-benefit analysis on Net-Zero, which appears not to exist. And finally, I will request how much this new Labor Department for Climate Change is going to cost the Australian taxpayer.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you all for being here today. The Australian National Audit Office said in January—this is from its own report: 

DCCEEW reports annually on progress towards targets, however is unable to demonstrate the extent to which specific Australian Government policies and programs have contributed or are expected to contribute towards overall emissions reduction. 

I find that incredible. We see that solar and wind have taken Australia from lowest cost electricity providers to amongst the highest. There are dramatic impacts on cost of living and adverse effects on inflation and grocery prices. Everything is impacted by energy and electricity, including security and international competitiveness. I’ve just come back from North Queensland, where I’ve seen massive destruction of the environment up there. Some of the large solar and wind projects in Western Victoria and in North Queensland are not even connected to the grid, but we’re paying for them. At your behest, the government is completely upending our entire economy. You are destroying the cheap power grid we had. You’re going to make it nearly impossible to buy a new Toyota Hilux. You’re trying to force everyone into electric vehicles. You’re spending $20 billion on Snowy 2 and you can’t tell anyone whether anything the government has done has actually made a difference. I think that is because it hasn’t made a difference. What quantifiable difference have these solar and wind and other so-called policies made? 

Mr Fredericks: Senator, if it’s okay with you, I might take up the ANAO issue. There was quite a detailed response from the department to that. If it is okay with you, I might ask Ms Evans to give you a response. 

Senator ROBERTS: A response to the ANAO findings. I would also like to know the quantifiable difference these policies have made to our country. 

Ms Evans: I will answer both. In the first part, the department disagrees with the finding that you read out from the ANAO report. We do, in fact, have quite a comprehensive way of reporting on policies and programs and what they contribute to our emissions reductions, which Ms Rowley will be able to take you through in a moment. With regard to the overall outcomes, you can see that—in fact, it is part of the same answer—in our annual national greenhouse gas inventory and all of the results that come from that there is a definite decline in Australia’s emissions over the period that we’ve been looking at. Again, Ms Rowley can give you the specific details on that. I think we are up to about 24 or 25 per cent below 2005 levels at this stage. All of those policies that you were referring to have contributed to those reductions in emissions, which are contributing to a global response to climate change. Ms Rowley will take you through the very substantial way in which we track our policies and programs. 

Ms Rowley: Thanks you, Ms Evans. The ANAO was essentially seeking measure by measure modelling and tracking the impact of every policy over time, which we consider is neither practical nor efficient given that different policies and measures interact, particularly as the policy mix changes over time. They are also impacted by structural changes in the economy. However, we evaluate the impact of policies and programs on emissions during their development. That is part of the public consultation on the design of the policies ex ante, so ahead of time. In general, we prioritise policies that are going to have a material impact on Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. That analysis then becomes part of the cost-benefit analysis to inform government decisions. 

In terms of reporting on progress, this occurs through a number of channels. The department and government report progress against the 2030 target transparently and independently through channels such as the Climate Change Authority’s annual progress report, the minister’s annual climate change statement to parliament and Australia’s annual emissions projection report. As Ms Evans said, we also report on Australia’s actual emissions over time each year through our national inventory report and every quarter through the quarterly update. Both the inventory— 

Senator ROBERTS: Just a minute. So what you’re saying, as I understand it, is that various other entities report on this? 

Ms Rowley: Other entities, including the independent Climate Change Authority and the department through its work on the national inventory and the annual projections. 

Senator ROBERTS: But they actually report on aspects of it—bits of it, not the whole lot? 

Ms Rowley: No. Particularly documents like the emissions projections, which are one of our signature reports— 

Senator ROBERTS: Emissions projections? 

Ms Rowley: Emissions projections. It’s an annual report. It tracks and projects Australia’s progress towards its 2030 target. I could use that as an example to illustrate how we look at the impact of specific policies. The 2023 projections, which were published in December last year, include detailed analysis of the abatement arising from some of the government’s key mitigation policies. For example, the safeguard mechanism reforms are estimated to deliver just over 50 million tonnes of abatement in 2030. The projections report provides detail, including the projected mix of onsite abatement and the use of credits over time as well as how that policy impact is distributed across the different sectors, which are covered by the safeguard mechanism. It also includes details of the Australian carbon credit unit scheme, estimating that it will grow from delivering 17 million tonnes of abatement last year, 2023, to 30 million tonnes in 2033. Again, the projections provide reports on the types of projects, price forecasts and the sectoral split of activity. 

With the additional measures scenario, which is also part of that 2023 projections report, there are reports on the potential impacts of some of the policies that are still under detailed design and development. For example, the government’s 82 per cent renewable electricity target is supported by measures such as the capacity investment scheme and the Rewiring the Nation program, which is estimated to deliver 21 million tonnes of abatement in 2030. The projections report provides detail across the different electricity grids covered by that target. It also provides quantitative estimates for the fuel efficiency standard for new vehicles, which the government is currently consulting on. Whilst that was a relatively stylised analysis given that the policy is still being designed, we estimated that would deliver a net six million tonnes of abatement in 2030. 

Senator ROBERTS: That is a lot of alphabet soup. Thank you. The point is, though, you have no evidence. The ANAO is not convinced you have any evidence. You can’t demonstrate how a specific policy has made any difference to the production of carbon dioxide from human activity. That is not me saying it; that is the ANAO. 

Ms Rowley: Senator Roberts, you will recall that Ms Evans noted that the department disagrees with that finding. As I outlined, there is a range of analytic work and public reports that the department and other entities across government conduct to ensure that there is a careful analysis of the emissions implications of key policy reforms that have a material impact on Australia’s emissions. I have given you some examples of that. 

Senator ROBERTS: I don’t know whether you are aware of it or not, Ms Rowley, Ms Evans or Minister McAllister, but no-one anywhere has been able to provide me with a quantified specific effect of cutting carbon dioxide from human activity on climate. What basis is there for tracking policy when there’s no fundamental foundation for it anyway? So is anyone able to tell me the impact of carbon dioxide from human activity on any aspect of the climate specifically in a quantified way? How are you able to track that when there’s no basis for it? 

Senator McAllister: There are two things. One is that this is a well-worn path between you and me. 

Senator ROBERTS: Yet, Minister, I still haven’t seen that. 

Senator McAllister: Perhaps I can answer. It is a source of fundamental disagreement. You do not accept the science that human activities— 

Senator ROBERTS: Correction. I do accept the actual empirical scientific evidence. 

CHAIR: Okay. Let’s not cut across each other. 

Senator ROBERTS: I want to make sure the minister doesn’t— 

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, there is a difference of opinion here, a difference of interpretation of which science is whose. Can we stick to asking the questions and listening to the answers? You can probe it as much as you like. Let’s keep it civilised here. 

Senator McAllister: To assist Senator Roberts, I will put my answer in different terms. This government does accept the science that human activities are inducing global warming. That presents a threat to human systems and the biodiversity that our human activities depend upon. I understand from comments you’ve made previously, Senator Roberts, that is not your position. But that is the government’s position. As a consequence, we are committed to reducing Australia’s contribution to anthropogenic emissions to 2050. That is a position that, as I understand it, is bipartisan. I believe that remains the position of the coalition as well. It is the basis on which we are also committed to that by way of our participation in the processes of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Minister. 

Senator McAllister: The second point I wish to make is that this is not a feature of the ANAO’s assessment of the department. The question the ANAO sought to answer was whether the department is using its resources well to meet those emissions reduction targets. The evidence that has been provided to you by now Ms Evans and Ms Rowley goes to the way that the ANAO engaged with that question. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Minister. Can you tell me or anyone in the department, because you are driving this, the cost per unit of carbon dioxide decrease to our economy? What is the cost to individual Australians? I have never seen a cost-benefit analysis or a business case for this ever. No-one has ever said that they’ve done that. 

Ms Evans: We might take on notice to put down a response that adequately reflects the costs and benefits of climate action in Australia. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Ms Evans. Specifically I would like to know the cost per unit of carbon dioxide decreasing. 

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I’m going to rotate the call. 

Senator ROBERTS: I would also like to know your total annual budget, please. 

Mr Fredericks: Of the department? 

Senator ROBERTS: Yes. 

Mr Fredericks: Okay. We’ll take it on notice. 

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. 

The World Economic Forum is not just an economic ‘think tank’. It isn’t just some bizarre entity that tries to insert itself into our lives with rules about how often we wash our jeans, drive our car, or eat red meat.

It’s the mouthpiece of the unseen hands manipulating world events.

All WEF vassal states, including Australia, are working on central bank digital currencies (CBDC) while simultaneously closing bank branches, eliminating cash and negatively influencing independent crypto currencies. By manipulating the price of Bitcoin (pump, dump, repeat), the unseen hand destroys trust in the non-CBDC. Explicitly, these governments are doing to nothing to protect or regulate crypto because the want private crypto currencies to fail.

How does this affect you? CBDCs are the ultimate control tool for governments. Censorship of free speech using misinformation laws is even more easily achieved when people’s finances are tied to a digital currency controlled by the government. A government promoting a dystopian future.

One Nation stands strongly opposed to the Labor party, the globalist Liberals and Greens promoting this dystopian future and coveting the power that comes with it. The choice for voters is clear.

Transcript

A popular quote reads: ‘Who controls the food supply controls the people. Who controls the energy can control a whole continent. Who controls money can control the whole world.’ Only the ignorant could possibly look at the world as it is in 2024 and think, ‘Nothing to see here.’ Farmers who are having their land confiscated under net zero measures are spraying effluent at politicians. Immigrants complaining about their handouts are causing violence across the West, including in our own Queensland communities. Anyone who sees our stagnant national wealth growth being divided among 10 million more people over the last decade knows there is less for everybody. Apparently no-one, having done the sums [inaudible], can deny this. War has broken out in multiple locations, and the mainstream media are doing their best to fan those flames into a third world war. 

The unseen hands that guide these world events have shown themselves via their mouthpiece, the World Economic Forum. Yesterday, I spoke of how the World Economic Forum was trying to control the world’s food and energy supply. Today, it’s the third element of the doctrine of global control: money. At the recent World Economic Forum Davos meeting, Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, announced a digital currency for the European Central Bank to ensure they remain the anchor of the European financial system to protect their power and control over money. All World Economic Forum vassal states, including Australia, are producing a central bank digital currency while at the same time closing bank branches, eliminating cash and manipulating nongovernment crypto. By 2030, the only payment mechanism will be their own digital currency and digital ID. It’s control of money. 

Then there’s a final element: a set of misinformation and disinformation laws that will ensure any attempt to speak as I am speaking here today will result in having my digital ID and digital currency turned off for misinformation. The ALP, globalists, the Liberals and the Greens are promoting this dystopian future, coveting the power that comes with it. One Nation stands strongly opposed. The choice for voters is clear. 

The elitists at Davos love to chat about restricting travel while comparing the private jets they flew in on. They push EVs, yet the Davos limos are fuel powered. The forum sessions openly plot to reduce animal farming and fishing, yet they dine on the finest steak and seafood.

Where do we draw the line?

Over coffee, these Davos speakers discussed guilt-tripping the masses about coffee’s CO2 emissions.

Would you let the WEF take away your coffee? It’s all part of the plan to make you feel guilty for existing and change purchases to products owned by the WEF-connected billionaires.

Reject the CO2 Climate scam. One Nation is hugely pro-human and anti-WEF.

Kevin Roberts’ message to the self-appointed global elitists at Davos adds further emphasis to Javier Milei’s speech.

It’s incredible — when the globalists at Davos say “rebuild trust” what they mean is suppress dissenting views and opinions that are based on facts and data. What the WEF calls misinformation or disinformation is just information not aligned with the propaganda machine that’s being used for power and control on a massive scale.

The head of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, says that the global business community faces a great threat that requires swift and immediate action. That threat is bigger than wars or climate.

Resistance is growing. Many are waking up fast. Is 2024 the year of uncovering the truth?

Javier Milei speaks frankly at the WEF in Davos.

This speech criticising socialism by the libertarian leader is well worth your time listening to.

Three Bills are being rammed through the Senate to create legislation that will transform the UN-WEF plans for surveillance and control into a dystopian reality in Australia.

The first is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which is designed to permit the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens and normalise it. The second, the Digital Identity Bill 2023, will ensure Australians have no choice but to succumb to setting up a digital ID. The third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023. This is the censorship tool to make sure both the media and social media carries government sanctioned opinions only. The government in power is exempted and free to be the Ministry of Truth, spreading misinformation or disinformation. Remember how well that went during the COVID response?

The Driver’s Licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already being used to establish your identity with a paper check and now with a facial scan.

I implored the Senate to vote against and to reject this Bill. This is the first of three Bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.

Transcript

One Nation strongly opposes the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023. Here’s why. The Albanese government’s great mate, Blackrock boss Larry Fink, and predatory billionaires at the World Economic Forum are fond of the phrase ‘you will own nothing and be happy’. What they really mean is that they will own everything and you will comply. Why would people voluntarily enslave themselves, give up their homes, cars and household goods and lose the right to travel freely, I hear you ask. The answer is that people will not be given a choice. They will be coerced—forced into it. That’s the purpose of this government’s triad of tyranny.

First is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023, which will normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Second is the Digital ID Bill 2023, which will force every Australian into having a digital ID. Third is the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions; the government will be exempted and can be free to spread misinformation and disinformation.

Biometric data is your face turned into a data file based on your physical characteristics. It allows for faster and more accurate identification. They will capture your face. The national drivers licence database is being upgraded to become the repository of your master identification record, which is already used to establish your identity with a paper check. Now it will have a facial scan.

Australians do not need to consent in a meaningful manner. The bill currently uses the word ‘consent’ without definition. Consent can be implied. Here’s an example. If a person sees a video of themselves on a self-service check-out at the supermarket and uses the check-out anyway, it’s considered implied consent. The government has accepted that implied consent is no consent at all and has upgraded the reference to ‘consent’ in their amendment on sheet UD100 to ‘explicit consent’. That isn’t good enough either. Explicit consent can be provided as blanket consent. An example would be MasterCard changing their terms and conditions to allow for facial recognition whenever their card is used. Once the card owner gets the email saying, ‘We have updated our terms and conditions. Click here to approve,’ and people click without reading it, one of those new terms could be permission for facial recognition. Did you give consent? No.

Banks currently record the image of anyone using their ATMs and then use that in the case of a fraudulent transaction. Banks will update their terms and conditions to give themselves the right to run your biometric
verification on each occasion before allowing access to your account. Refusing the new permission gives your bank or card company the right to refuse service. It’s that simple. It’s blackmail. This is why the government suggesting a digital ID or biometric data check will be voluntary is a complete lie. It’s compulsory, because not agreeing means you lose your bank account or payment card or service—just as those voluntary COVID injections were compulsory if you wanted to keep your job and your house and feed your family.

I foreshadow an amendment in the committee stage on sheet 2327 to change the definition of ‘explicit’ to ‘active’, meaning on each occasion your face is to be scanned they must ask permission before they scan it and make sure they get your permission each time. That’s active consent. This should be supported, because the government already says Australians will have to consent to their biometric data being used—unless, of course, that was misinformation.

This bill does not offer a direct link between the authentication action at a check-out, office, airport et cetera and the master file. A government hub receives a request and pulls the master file, meaning only the government has access to the master file. This seems to look acceptable, yet it means there’s a master file with 17 million records containing name, address, telephone, date of birth, drivers licence number, passport number and a biometric identification file all sitting in the same database. That’s all the information necessary to steal someone’s ID and impersonate them online—a hacker’s paradise.

Robodebt proved that our bureaucrats are incapable of even a simple one-to-one database match, and now they’re being trusted to pull this off. It’s impossible without a high level of compulsion and without completely ignoring victims of software or data-matching errors. If the look-up fails, then your purchase, travel, document, signing or whatever other use fails. If the purchase was for petrol, your family could be stranded late at night. We might as well start the royal commission now.

Downstream from the big government database are what I call intermediaries or entities with participating agreements. There are 20 of these so far. Their role is to take a request for authentication from a bank or card
processor, solicitor, real estate agent, airline—anyone needing you to prove you are who you say you are—and submit that to the national drivers licence database hub to run past the master database. In the original bill there were no effective checks and balances on those businesses. The government’s amendment of its own bill has added a few checks and balances to ensure that intermediaries must delete data received as part of the verification process.

Thank you, Minister Gallagher. That, taken together with my amendment to make the level of consent clear, takes some of the potential abuse out of the bill. A clear privacy statement would have helped. The government have promised they will do that later. There are trust issues around that promise.

Questions remain around the New South Wales government’s comment that this bill will allow them to verify that every person detected driving a car past a surveillance camera has a drivers licence.

The only way this can be achieved is if every driver is scanned every time they pass a detection camera and their image is compared to the national database. Does this mean those cameras going up around Australia are just the right height to scan the driver’s face and that the cameras will be used to scan and verify your identity each time you pass one? Yes, it does. Before they work out who you are and whether you have a licence, they have to scan and verify your biometrics. It’s the only explanation for the New South Wales government’s comment.

For those listening to this with incredulity, I remind you that this is exactly the system now in place in London, with Lord Mayor Khan’s ULEZ, Ultra Low Emission Zone, and in Birmingham, Manchester and other cities in Britain. It’s really the World Economic Forum’s 15-minute cities happening right now. Residents are locked into their zone and can only leave a certain number of times a year. This is happening in Britain. That depends on the make and model of the car you drive. If you drive a car they don’t like, you can’t move. Rich people who can afford electric cars can, of course, come and go as they please. Everyday citizens are locked in or, when they leave, the cameras detect them leaving and fine them on the spot. It’s a fine of 180 pounds a week for leaving over seven days.

That’s in Britain now. Already it has raised hundreds of millions of pounds because people will pay for freedom.

Look it up. Don’t just trust me: look it up. There are fines for not registering with the system and fines for breaching the 15-minute limits. It’s a virtual fence. It’s like an electric dog collar. It’s the foundation for a social credit system to completely control people’s lives. So don’t tell me this is a conspiracy theory. It’s real and it’s happening now in our mother country.

Cash is necessary to ensure these measures are ameliorated as much as possible, which is why the globalist wing of the Liberal Party tried to ban cash in the last parliament, which One Nation defeated. It should be obvious that predatory, parasitic billionaires and some of their lackeys in the Labor and Liberal Party are getting their ducks in a row because they want to be ready for the full implementation of their globalist masters’ control agenda, exactly as they promised. It’s not like they’re hiding any of this. When they tell us what they’re going to do, listen.

Remember this government’s triad of tyranny. Already entered into parliament is the Identity Verification Services Bill 2023 to normalise and allow the use of biometric data to locate and track citizens. Here it is. There’s the Digital ID Bill 2023 to force every Australian into having a digital ID. There’s the misinformation and disinformation bill 2023, which will ensure media and social media only carry government sanctioned opinions, and the government is exempted. I implore the Senate to vote against this bill and to reject this bill. This is the first of three bills necessary to turn Australia into the world’s first World Economic Forum digital prison.

With the most wind, solar and batteries on the grid than ever, Australian power bills have never been higher.

For over a decade and almost everyday in the Senate since being elected, I have been fighting the net-zero scam.

I’ll be fighting even harder next year.

Watch some of my speeches about this issue here at https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/?s=net+zero

In 2016, I stood in the senate for the first time and warned that the United Nations wanted to reduce everyday Australians to the status of serfs through climate policy. I said back then we need an #AusExit, that our values and way of life were at risk from the dangerous socialist agendas of the UN. And here we are now.

Here is more legislation being pushed through Australia’s house of review, the Senate, without proper scrutiny or debate. Labor is doing more dodgy deals on behalf of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. Labor has also introduced a Motion to allow the Greens to amend the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act as part of this Bill. This allows the Greens to put a Bill of their own making onto the end of the government’s Bill then vote it all through in one go. A Bill that we cannot review, amend or debate. This isn’t conventional parliamentary process. This is undemocratic dictatorship.

The ‘Nature Repair’ Bill allows large corporations to greenwash their image by leveraging the PR benefit of Nature Repair Projects they buy. It provides the means to restrict productive capacity through taking productive farmland and returning it to Gaia. It will prevent Australians and visitors to our country from being able to get out and generally enjoy our magnificent national parks because it hands more control over to traditional owners.

The globalist agenda is being rolled out in the self-interest of the world’s predatory investment funds. It’s delivered through the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum and implemented in shoddy, rushed legislation like this bill proposes.

One Nation proudly stands against everything this Bill represents and I offer the same advice as I did in 2016. We must exit the United Nations #AusExit!

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (20:06): As a servant of the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, it’s my duty to ensure I deal with every bill that comes before the Senate fully and properly. All too often, this government does dodgy deals with the Teals, the crossbench and the Greens to get legislation through without scrutiny. This is legislation that’s written for reasons of ideology, not human need, and that as a result makes things worse. This is legislation that must get through without debate, lest the electorate be informed about what the government is really doing to them in the name of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.

I’m speaking about the Nature Repair Bill 2023, only 30 minutes from when the vote will be taken, yet I’m speaking to an interim bill. The massive amendments to this bill, which I know now are substantial, had not been revealed to the Senate just an hour ago. It appears to be the government’s plan to provide the amendments and then require an immediate vote. That was exactly what we saw. That’s not how the house of review, our Senate, works.

Even more troubling is that the government now has a motion that would allow the Greens to amend the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act as part of this bill—news to us until an hour ago. What that means is the Greens, with Teal Senator Pocock’s support, are being allowed to put a bill of their own making onto the end of the government’s bill and then vote it all through—a bill we can’t read, can’t amend and can’t debate. There’s a longstanding convention in the Senate that we do one bill at a time and amend only the bill at hand, a rule the government are happy to ignore when they get desperate enough numbers to do a deal with the Greens and Teals. This isn’t parliamentary process; it is undemocratic dictatorship. What a joke, and the people will be paying for it. When we call the Greens watermelons—green on the outside and red on the inside—this is why. Soviet Russia would pull a stunt like this, not democratic Australia.

I’ve spoken on several occasions recently on how this Labor government is best friends with the world’s predatory parasitic billionaires. This bill is a perfect example of that. Like the failed national electricity market, which is really a racket, this bill allows large corporations to greenwash their businesses. To explain, greenwashing allows a business—most likely a foreign multinational company—to make a claim such as being ‘net zero friendly’. That’s simply not true. They’re deceiving investors and customers in the process. They get to net zero by purchasing green certificates or carbon dioxide credits to balance out the environmental costs supposedly incurred in their business operation. A European Union report found that 95 per cent of carbon dioxide credits came from projects that did not make a difference to the environment, and Europol just a few years ago said 95 per cent are crooked. In other words, it’s all a con.

The mining industry have come out in favour of offsets, which they call ‘avoided-loss offsets’. These offsets occur after purchasing and improving an area of land with the same habitat as that which is destroyed or damaged in the development. This may appear to be mining-friendly, yet it’s really more expense and more green tape that would best be handled through the existing system of remediation—put it back the way you found it, or better, which is what is happening.

Indeed, one could be concerned that these avoided loss offsets are an alternative to remediation. I certainly hope not.

The bill helps wind turbines with the horrible problem of clubbing koalas on the koalas’ property—clubbing them to death! They could literally club 10 koalas to death and then buy a national biodiversity certificate for 10 new koalas bred somewhere else. As we speak, the Australian Carbon Credit Unit’s review is underway. The review is looking at a thousand carbon dioxide credit generating projects to see if they were fair dinkum and have been kept up. The lessons from that review were going to be added to this bill to ensure the national biodiversity certificate system was legitimate. Bringing forward this bill actually ruins that process.

One Nation opposes greenwashing, although, in most cases, we would suggest that the better option would be for our mining and manufacturing industries to first use environmentally friendly techniques, as they usually do. Then, having done that, be proud of their role in developing the economy, providing jobs and supplying materials that people need for a life of abundance. Perhaps that’s just we conservatives taking care of the natural environment and taking care of people. Some submissions to the Senate inquiry called on the government to purchase the certificates themselves to provide certainty that, should a project be completed, there would be someone to buy the resulting certificate. Minister Plibersek has ruled this out—the only decision in this whole process One Nation can support.

I was amused with the submission from champagne socialists in the Byron Shire Council, who submitted that— quote—’free market alone may not facilitate rapid uptake of this scheme,’ and called on the federal government to kickstart the market by committing to purchasing certificates itself. It will never stop. I would think that the federal government would be better off spending money on tax cuts for working Australians and paying off our debt so that interest rates come down, but that’s just conservative values again—human values; real environmental values.

Minister Plibersek has described this bill as creating a ‘green Wall Street’. Wall Street provides a means for financing businesses to expand productive capacity. This bill provides a means to restrict productive capacity
through taking productive farmland and returning it to Gaia. I don’t see the comparison with a genuine financial product, unless the minister was making a comparison to Bernie Madoff. That would be accurate in that case. The product itself, biodiversity credits, is subjective and, over time, will require more and more personnel to conduct compliance on an ever-increasing number of projects, just like the National Electricity Market—the racket. This does not increase productive capacity. It does increase bureaucracy at the public’s expense, of course. Many submissions opposed the use of these certificates for environmental offsets, including the Greens’, and I note their amendments remove the offsets for the purpose of these certificates. This would seem a significant conflict between the minister’s intent and the Greens’ intent. What a mess! The Nature Repair Market Bill 2023 is a solution to a problem that has not yet been defined and does not meet real needs, just like the failed National Electricity Market.

The government is working on an update on the entire Environmental Protection and Biosecurity Conservation Act—the EPBC—informed by the Samuels review into the legislation from three years ago. Those amendments will frame the problem this bill is supposedly solving. This is something that Senator Thorpe has correctly pointed out in the second reading amendment, which I will support. How do you pass a bill like this ahead of the implementation of the Samuels review? How do we know which projects should be supported and which are not needed, or, worse, which projects are a load of bollocks, like the stuff that comes out of the south end of a northbound bull, as most climate projects are—climate fraud?

In relation to ensuring integrity around the use of offsets, the Australian government is working to introduce a new national environmental standard for actions and restoration contributions. This new standard is expected to include a requirement that offsets must deliver net gain for impacted protected matters and that biodiversity projects certified under the Nature Repair Market Bill will only be able to be used as offsets if they meet the new standard. What new standard? Oh, wait, you haven’t written it yet! Great. Minister Plibersek is trying to pass a bill that implements a standard that hasn’t been written yet. Can someone please give the government’s legislation chocolate wheel back to rotary and we’ll go back to doing things properly—you know, in the correct order.

This legislation implements something called the Nature Positive Plan. That sounds good. This is the government’s overarching environmental blueprint. I notice that, on page 32, this plan includes a provision that
traditional owners will have more control over Commonwealth national parks. More control!

Australians who are used to bushwalking, camping and generally enjoying the beautiful national parks Australia offers are flat out of luck under this Labor government. ‘No nature for you. Get back to your 15-minute cities.’ That’s exactly what the United Nations sustainable development goals do—they reduce everyday Australians to the status of serfs, imprisoned in their 15-minute cities, locked in a digital identity prison, owning nothing and eating bugs instead of real food. I first said that in the Senate in 2016, and the sniggers were obvious. Well, nobody’s sniggering now. Now you’re all trying to justify the abomination your globalist masters are working to impose.

Over the remainder of the Albanese government, those in this chamber will be required to face the reality of this government’s globalist agenda. It’s not an agenda written for the benefit of everyday Australians or for the Labor heartland. It’s an agenda that serves the self-interest of the world’s predatory investment funds, delivered through lobby groups like the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum and implemented repeatedly in legislation like this. It’s an agenda that will make life a misery for everyday Australians, sending them back to serfdom. One Nation stands against everything this bill represents. It proudly stands against everything this bill represents.

The Albanese government is deliberately opposing my motion to reveal the infrastructure review it’s using to justify cutting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of badly needed infrastructure projects around Australia. Projects like dams for towns and agriculture, transport projects and visionary nation-building projects. It’s cutting costs in areas where we need to spend, while sending huge sums to the United Nations and Tedros the Terrorist at the WHO.

Australia needs a productive infrastructure so that we can build our competitive and productive advantage and stop relying on other nations who buy our raw materials such as iron ore, for example, for steel and other building materials. Why are we exporting raw materials and buying back finished products instead of making the whole product here? Australia has everything it needs to be self-reliant, except for a government with the common sense to facilitate it.

How many more times will this Labor government be exposed for the secrets its hiding from the Australian taxpayers?

Australians deserve the transparency and accountability they were promised, and the infrastructure this country badly needs.

Transcript

The Albanese government is making secret cuts to infrastructure projects. Twice now the Senate has passed my motion, forcing the government to hand over the full infrastructure review that they used to justify cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in projects. Twice, the government has opposed transparency and accountability about its secret infrastructure cuts. How many more times will the Labor government keep secrets from Australian taxpayers? 

This is the Labor review that concluded the Emu Swamp dam at Stanthorpe should be cancelled. Only three years ago, this southern Queensland town was in severe drought and ran dry. They had to cart in millions of litres of water by truck just to survive. Up to 50 trucks carted water hundreds of kilometres every day for 15 months. On what basis did the Labor government conclude Stanthorpe doesn’t deserve a dam? We might never know. The government has so far refused to hand over the review that justifies the decision. If Stanthorpe doesn’t have water, Stanthorpe will die. The Labor government needs to answer why they believe Stanthorpe should be left to die in the next drought. It has literally been hung out to dry. One Nation will keep fighting for those answers and we will fight for more dams across Queensland. What we need in Australia is productive infrastructure to build our competitive advantage—our productive competitiveness. We need dams that agriculture can use to boom. We need cheap power, from which the entire economy will benefit. We need functional roads that don’t have potholes big enough to destroy a car’s suspension. 

Australia needs visionary, nation-building projects—infrastructure projects like the Iron Boomerang. Right now, every year, we send 900 million tonnes of iron ore and 360 million tonnes of coal overseas. We ship it overseas. Those are two essential ingredients to making steel, which we largely import. We put that dirt on a boat, places like China buy it, they turn it into steel, they make things like unproductive wind turbines out of the steel, they put them on a boat and they ship the wind turbines back to Australia in the form of steel, where our dopey government buys it off them. 

We should let private enterprise build the Iron Boomerang track linking our iron ore and coalmines, so we can make the steel right here in this country. The government doesn’t even have to build Iron Boomerang. They just have to promise they won’t get in the way, and then private money will pay for it. That money is already knocking on the door. These are the kinds of nation-building infrastructure projects that would be on the horizon if One Nation had our way. We certainly wouldn’t be cutting productive infrastructure, like dams, in secret as the Labor government is doing. Before all of that we need accountable and transparent government. Labor continues to prove it will never be transparent. Their secret infrastructure cuts are just the latest example of a government that’s afraid of explaining itself to the voters.