SOUTH Australian Labor Senator Charlotte Walker actually believes that without a net zero target, “there will be no Australian farmers, businesses or industries to support us.”
The 21-year-old dropped the statement in the Senate during the week after One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson introduced a motion to end Net Zero policy, following Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce’s private members Bill calling for the same thing.
Senator Walker’s statement is alarming on at least two counts: That increasing numbers of young Australian politicians are extremely ignorant of economic realities regarding agriculture, business and industry and secondly that they have been brainwashed in environmental extremism approaching that of the Just Stop Oil cult.
“All I can say is, are you kidding?” the 21-year-old told Senator Hanson in schoolgirlish outrage. “The motion put forward on net zero indicates a severe lack of knowledge and a complete disregard for the future of our generation, the future of our country.
“Without a net zero target, there will be no Australian farmers, businesses or industries to support us.”
Does Senator Walker actually believe that not instituting a net zero policy will somehow hurt or even destroy Australia’s major economic activities? Apparently so. Or was it just a case of political hyperbole?
There are multiple leaders in farming, business and industry who would strongly disagree with the young Senator because they are the ones paying the initial bills for the Labor Party’s cultish obsession with renewable energy and carbon credits.
Or does she actually believe that CO2 and other emissions will trigger a global ecological apocalypse and physically destroy Australia. This seems to be the belief of the Just Stop Oil cult or the likes of Greta Thunberg, and Senator Walker sounds disturbingly like her.
But we have to give the young senator credit for getting one thing right: that farmers, businesses and industries “support us”. Yes senator, they do. Congratulations for having some commonsense. But we’re well aware that certain environmentalists in your SA Labor-Green camp have difficulty believing even that.
What the wet-behind-the-ears senator and the rest of the SA Labor-Green crowd do not appear to have grasped is that in Australia, farms, business and industry run primarily on oil and coal-fired electricity. In fact that is a world-wide reality, but the ideology and policy of net zero penalises and strangles farms, business and industry simply for using natural resources.
Senator Walker and her Labor/Green senators, appear to not understand that if you take away oil and coal from the economy, it would literally collapse. Modern economies run on oil and coal. China has more than 1100 coal-fired power stations, which is why they are able to manufacture cars like Australia used to.
To force a transition from oil and coal as a gradual process is merely extending the slow death of industry. Wind, solar and batteries simply cannot run a major city and especially not heavy industry like the Portland Aluminium Smelter in Victoria, or the Bluescope Steelworks at Port Kembla, NSW or the now- endangered Mt Isa Smelter.
But the march towards the so-called transition to renewables continues, and as it does so, consumer electricity prices continue to rise – a trend set in place initially by Julia Gillard’s failed carbon tax scheme.
Now the Labor party has a nice new name for carbon tax – the Safeguard Mechanism (SM) – which mandates that Australia’s most emission-intensive facilities must reduce their carbon emissions below a specified yearly threshold, with the excess to be offset by way of purchasing and surrendering carbon credits.
The Institute for Public Affairs reports that the SM will impose a carbon tax cost of up to$1.7 billion per annum to 2030, more than the projected cost of the tariffs imposed on Australia by the United States.
But it’s not just heavy industry that is impacted by carbon taxes as one case we highlighted recently revealed: A proposed aged care facility in Denham, NSW, on a 10-acre paddock. The Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water quoted the non-profit project developers $3.5 million for “carbon credits” (taxes in effect) and ecological assessment fees.
Such “carbon costs” can of course be “covered” by enterprises joining the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme and earn one ACCU for every tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (t CO₂-e) emissions their project stores or avoids. Participants can sell ACCUs on the secondary market or to the Australian Government by entering a carbon abatement contract.
So, you may wonder, what the hell does an aged care facility have to do with creating allegedly climate-changing carbon emissions? Oh, well you see 200 years ago the 10-acre site at Denham was covered by an “ancient forest” and this must be accounted for.
Senator Walker’s ignorance of everyday economic reality could be related to the fact that she went straight out of High School to work in a politician’s office. She went on to work for the Australian Services Union and was elected president of Young Labor in South Australia, and was affiliated with the Labor Left faction.
Now she’s in the Senate. Where’s her real-life experience? Senator Hanson could tell this girl a thing or two about real-life experience, like running the local fish ‘n chip shop or a real grassroots political movement.
But Senator Walker is in effect, just another Labor political animal. This outspoken young leftie will soon learn that in mainstream parties like Labor, she is nothing more than a component of the machine that tells her to jump when she’s told to. She has a lot to learn.
Meanwhile Senator Hanson’s motion sadly only gained seven votes – four One Nation Senators, United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet and Coalition Senators Matt Canavan and Alex Antic.
Senator Hanson was disgusted at the Coalition’s lack of support, their excuse being that net zero is “under review” by the party and that they did not want to upset that process.
“They’re gutless, you know, they’re cowards,” she told Sky News when asked about the prospect of Coalition senators not backing her motion.
“Because a lot of these people on the floor of parliament have no understanding, cannot debate you about climate change. They don’t even know anything about it (but) they’re making decisions and voting on it.”
She says Australians have “been hoodwinked” by net zero. “It’s a scam going on, and if we head down this path, what will happen to Australians? You will be restricted where you travel, where you go, what you eat, and it will be based on your carbon emissions.”
The News.com.au report on the debate claimed “Australia’s renewables targets do not impose restrictions on freedom of movement or diets”.
In fact the Safeguard Mechanism and related “anti-carbon” provisions indirectly impose higher costs on transport and food which in turn make them less accessible to everyday Australians. The high cost of red meat is one example.
Direct restrictions on diet and travel based on carbon emissions are also outlined in high-level environmental consultancy reports being considered by UK and EU governments under the UN’s Agenda 2030 “global development” program.
As repeatedly pointed out by Barnaby Joyce, these carbon costs are hitting the poor disproportionately, and his question for the inner city Labor-Green-Teal voters is, are they “prepared to hurt the poor” by pursuing a carbon neutral future?
Joyce’s Private Members Bill proposes to abandon Australia’s carbon-neutral target by 2050.
