Pause Renewables Rollout

The people of the Nanango electorate have overwhelming told me they do not support the rollout of the industrial wind, solar, battery and hydro factories. They were told their electricity prices would reduce, yet they have massively increased. They have told me that the industrial factories are reckless and are destroying the region. Australia's energy should be home-grown and not reliant on foreign powers to make and supply to us, epecially when those foreign powers have sanctioned Australia before, and have two of the biggest cyber terrorists on the planet; APT40 and Volt Typhoon. This is the same country that has over 1,100 coal plants with 300 more under construction or in proposal to be built. 

All Australians deserve access to an electricity supply which is secure and reliable; where costs are affordable and competitive and not heavily subsidised by taxpayer dollars; and adverse impacts on regional and rural communities, food security, and impact on the natural environment is minimised. 

Australia must have RELIABLE ENERGY and therefore must PAUSE the RENEWABLE rollout. Modern communities need electricity like we need oxygen. We need electricity that is provided at the right time, frequency and quantity, all day, every day. Electricity under 100% renewables only policy will be weather dependent, have a low availability, and controllability and be highly erratic. 

Australia must have AFFORDABLE ENERGY and therefore must PAUSE the RENEWABLE rollout. Australians are suffering massively under a cost-of-living crisis with many families now living in energy poverty. The cost of power is sending many small, medium and large businesses broke or sending manufacturing and jobs offshore in search of cheaper energy prices. Australia used to have one of the cheapest electricity prices in the developed world, now we have one of the most expensive. In fact, since Labor and the LNP started privatising our energy, prices have soared by over 200%. Australians need access to cheap, abundant energy. Under a 100% renewables approach to energy policy, our electricity will continue to rise and with generational infrastructure needing to be replaced multiple times in comparison with other forms of baseload power like gas, coal and nuclear.  

Australia must have SECURE ENERGY and therefore must PAUSE the RENEWABLE rollout. We should ensure we continue to export raw materials to our closest allies to ensure they too can have a high degree of energy security. We also have the added issue of the geopolitical landscape to consider, which for the last 10 years has been incredibly unstable. The EU recently imposed higher tariffs on all EVs manufactured out of China, include Tesla. Our relationship with China is not as secure is it needs to be and putting our energy eggs into China’s basket makes no sense at all. China once consumed a significant amount of Australian coal. Now it represents 1.5% with Russia being the major exporter to China. Russia is also a member of the BRICS affiliate. Australia is not, so there is no loyalty. China also has more rare earths than any other country, plus they currently produce about 28-30% of global manufacturing output. What if China sanctions Australia again? We are undermining our energy security when we don’t need to as we have it all on our own shores. 

Australia must MAINTAIN FOOD SECURITY and therefore PAUSE the RENEWABLE rollout. Australia producers enough food and fibre to feed itself and over 80 million people overseas. Under a 100% approach to renewables, we are destabilising our food production ecosystems and those communities who produce our food and fibre. The spatial footprint of a 100% renewables approach could cover up over 181 million hectares of agricultural land in Australia, dramatically decreasing the amount of food this country can produce and export. This will contribute to a higher cost of food and also contribute to the higher cost-of-living crisis. Decreasing the capacity of our food production systems is also in direct conflict with Australia's commitment to the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement in which it states that countries need to transition to a lower emission economy whilst not affecting its food production capacity. 

Australia must MINIMISE ADVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS and therefore PAUSE the RENEWABLE rollout. Under the current energy policy of 100% renewable, we are destroying large tracts of native bushland and animals. As renewable energy is so intermittent and weak, we need to overbuild our energy system to compensate. This requires a decentralised energy system covering a massive spatial footprint, requiring extensive areas of remnant vegetation to be destroyed, earthworks, blasting and associated concrete and road construction. All this development leads to an overall increase in biodiversity decline. Wildlife scientists are now highlighting the significant threat renewable developments have to many endangered native flora and fauna. There is more research needed to determine the many risks associated with Low Frequency Noise (LNF) from Wind Turbines on native animal species both onshore and offshore that also use LFN to communicate with each other. The collective, accumulative effects of thousands of renewables developments and new, purpose-built high voltage electricity lines widely distributed across our landscape could lead to extinction events for many native species of animals and plants and lead to the mass incursions of invasive plants into once intact ecosystems.