Mr ANDREW: I rise to contribute to the cognate debate on the Energy
(Renewable Transformation and Jobs) Bill 2023 and the Clean Economy Jobs Bill 2024. Both bills share
similar goals, including to drive increased government and private investment in the state’s renewable
energy transition, legislate targets to provide industry and investors with the certainty that they need
and to provide support for the thousands upon thousands of workers who will be adversely impacted
by this transition.
Both bills legislate targets, with the Energy (Renewable Transformation and Jobs) Bill enacting
the government’s renewable targets and the Clean Economy Jobs Bill legislating its emission targets.
By enacting all these targets for renewables and emissions, the government claims it will provide
industry and investors with the certainty they need for their forward plans, except that under the clauses
in this bill all the targets are subject to review thereby creating a mechanism by which the government
can ratchet the targets up or down to suit its own needs or agenda. I am sure that that is hardly a good
way of providing industry with certainty. My main objection to legislating targets, however, is that none
are achievable and the costs of attempting to reach them will sabotage our whole economy.
According to CSIRO modelling, renewable energy in Queensland must increase 98 per cent over
the next 26 years to reach the government’s target of net zero. What a pipedream. At the bare minimum,
that will mean electrifying absolutely everything in the state. Currently, only a quarter of our energy
needs are met by electricity, most of which comes from fossil fuels. Referring to the motion that the
Greens member moved just now about getting away from coal, I do not think any of us want to have a
cold shower in the dark—not at any time. We are not used to that. We are not going to do that.
According to the CSIRO, renewable energy needs to increase an estimated 70 per cent by 2050.
This will require an absolutely massive expansion and doing so will cost the state up to $14 billion each
year between now and 2050, according to CSIRO. How we are going to afford this? The Treasurer
spoke to the debt this morning, so I hope this is all being factored in. That cost is commensurate with
the Queensland coal royalties that were produced last year, every year for the next 26 years. We will
see money ripped out of other vital areas of our economy, such as health and education. What is going
on there? It is a basket case.
We will see money ripped out of vital areas and spent on carpeting the bush with industrial-grade
wind and solar. This morning I asked the minister about koalas. We have a very unique ecosystem with
our animals and they are bringing in this low-frequency stuff to this state. Where are the environmental
impact studies? I want to see the studies. I do not want an extinction event. I do not want to see sterilised
these areas of remnant vegetation that are on the top of the mountains. Our wildlife will be destroyed if
they cannot even communicate because we have resonant sounds through frequencies, EMFs, that
will take away the koalas’ ability to communicate, mate and work together. Have we done it before?
Absolutely not! Are there any koalas in any other countries that has put this in? Absolutely not! Our
animals and our ecosystems are very unique to this country. Studies should be done in their absolute
entirety to make sure that we do not impact on these very precious animals of Australia.
You might think it is a joke. They cannot talk back. They do not have a say here in this House,
so I will have a say for them because I know what happens. I am out in the bush all the time. Animals
have their own way of communicating, and this is not going to help. They have a hum. It is so funny
that all of the stuff that comes in here is all about renewables and pushing the renewables, but what
about the impact to the environment?
Meeting these targets will end up driving the state into low productivity, low wages and low quality
of life to command and control the economy. There is a reason for that. Show me where the price of
power has gone down anywhere where this stuff has been put in. I would love to know. It has not
happened and it is never going to happen, yet here we are adopting it. It is nonsense.
Each bill invests enormous centralised power in the relevant minister. All that will mean is
reduced transparency and accountability and the enormous centralisation of power in the executive.
Turning to the issue of jobs, the Clean Economy Jobs Bill includes the word ‘jobs’ in the title but,
apart from that the word does not appear anywhere else in the bill—nowhere. ‘Employment’ appears
just once in clause 6(4)(d). That is because the Clean Economy Jobs Bill is not really about jobs or
employment at all. Everyone knows that a command-and-control economy will never be able to create
real jobs—at least, not fulfilling, productive, permanent and well-paid jobs. All of our manufacturing is
going overseas. What do we manufacture here to do with renewable energy? Nothing! Nothing!
Nothing! That is the trade-off with the so-called energy transition. How much is owned by the state?
That is the one thing I do agree with.
Honourable members interjected. 

Mr ANDREW: I am not taking any interjections. One thing I agree with the Green on is that it
should be publicly owned. How much of it is? Why is there no transparency on any of the contracts they
have with the landholders? Who owns the liability in the end? We have all of these Aboriginal
corporations and tribal corporations given security of tenure. Do not worry about this. In my area, the
totem of the Widi people is the wedge-tailed eagle. How many wedge-tailed eagles are going to be
killed in my area? How many people are going to see all the dead animals and the dead birds as a
result of this change? Clean energy of what?
At the end of the day, we are going to wipe out all of our species in those beautiful, pristine,
remnant vegetation areas that are built on the top of the hills. It is ridiculous. We have to give it more
thought than this. Australians and Queenslanders want more. They do not want all of their mountain
tops littered with this rubbish. Who is doing the clean-up? Where is the clean-up money coming from?
Where is the smooth transition from coal and being able to store it? What do they do? They go up there
to my area and put it all in the back lots so no-one knows about it. At least the Premier had the decency
to actually put a moratorium on signing contracts for the Pioneer-Burdekin dam to leave it until the next
election. Everyone in this state needs to know what is going on there and the damage that is going to
occur.
Not only that, we went there and we saw the way people are being dealt with. They are being
singled out; they are having mental health problems because the contracts are changing every day and
they are being made to sign the contract on the bottom line. This is what they told us at the meeting.
The Premier was sitting there listening to what went on. It is a disgrace and no-one should have to go
through it. If it is such a rolled gold project, why can we not do it properly? Why can we not be
transparent to everyone in Queensland about what is actually going on? Show them the contracts and
what is actually happening.
It is a damn disgrace and I will not put up with it and my people in Mirani will not put up with it.
They are fighting back because it is wrong and I am against it. I love my environment. We love the
things that we have there. There was a situation where I had to go and get a map out of one of the
offices from the hydro project, and they tried to grab it out of my hand because it had a plan B on it that
no-one even knows about.
Mrs Frecklington: What is the plan B?
Mr ANDREW: I take the interjection from the member for Nanango. The plan B was another hydro
right beside the other. There was another hydro. They just decided to take the map off me. Do you
know what they are going to do? They will put all of this infrastructure in there and they will piggyback
on it. That is fair enough, but not in my electorate and not up there at Eungella. It is a beautiful place. It
has got nature that is not found anywhere else. The people who are up there understand this. We
understand it. All of the people from the Yuwibara tribe up there do not want it either. Do the studies.
Show everyone the studies. Find out where this actually comes from. Find out what the low-frequency
noise is going to do to the animals before we do any of it. Extinction rate events do not constitute
cheaper energy prices, and they do not do anything for renewables.
(Time expired)
Hon. LM ENOCH: Before I contribute
to the bill, I want to say that I feel like we have just stepped into another dimension. The member for
Mirani is the only member in this House from One Nation—a party that does not support climate change
and does not support vegetation management laws in this state. The member for Mirani is sitting around
a fireplace with his tin foil hat on with some koalas and some other animals having a good old chat
about how we are going to manage renewables in this state. We know that this side of the House is
absolutely committed to renewables and we will continue down that path—the same way that we are
committed to addressing the impacts of climate change in this state. We do that through science. I know
that the member for Mirani may struggle with that idea also—that science is actually at the heart of how
we do these things