MATTERS OF URGENCY – Net Zero

I rise to support this motion, because net zero is not working. It’s very simple. When Australia signed up to net zero emissions just over three years ago, the people that were pushing net zero emissions said that it would deliver cheaper power. They said that it would create heaps of new jobs. They said that we’d be joining the rest of the world, who were, apparently, going to act on these things. On all of those fronts, those that pushed net zero have been wrong—not just by a little bit, but totally and utterly wrong. On power prices since we signed up to net zero: we were promised cheaper power. Is anyone paying less for their power? I don’t think so. Electricity prices have actually gone up 31 per cent in the last three years, and gas prices have gone up 40 per cent. Now the government doesn’t even promise lower power prices. They’ve given it up. They’ve just waved the white flag. On more jobs, we were promised all of these jobs in hydrogen and critical minerals. Well, we’ve lost our nickel industry. We’ve totally lost it. Ten thousand jobs have been lost in critical minerals in Western Australia since we started with net zero. We lost it because Indonesia has no shyness from building coal-fired power stations, and we were trying to make green nickel. We lost it. Now we’re on the cusp of losing copper and aluminium jobs. The government is having to bail out billions of dollars for them as well. Other countries aren’t acting either. We were told other countries were acting. The United States has pulled out. China, India, Indonesia and Mongolia have increased their annual coalmining by 1.2 billion tonnes a year since the so-called signing up to net zero. It is just not working, so it’s time to recognise that. When something is not working, you stop it and you do something else. That’s why we need to stop net zero. While I do support this motion, I do want to note that One Nation is playing catch-up here. My colleague and good friend Barnaby Joyce, the member for New England, has, in the other place, moved a law to repeal net zero. While I accuse One Nation of playing catch-up, I too must say that when Barnaby told me a few weeks ago he was going to do this, the first thing I thought was, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ I’ve got to give him credit for doing this. He’s put it on the agenda. He’s dominating the media and discussions. It’s about time we have a debate on this. I’m happy to have this debate too, but we are here to make laws, not just statements. We’ve got to repeal this rubbish so that finally we act in the interests of Australians again.