Volcanic ash and the socialist plot behind net zero |
Allow me to perform a small act of kindness. Intrigued by the surging popularity of One Nation, I've undertaken a brain-numbing task so you won't have to. I've delved in the party's platform for last year's election.
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Some of it hasn't aged well. Take the free speech policy. One Nation wants a referendum to enshrine free speech in the constitution. Had it been elected to government (don't fear, dear readers, that's a long, long way off) it would have repealed any laws that restricted it. Hate preachers, neo-Nazis, knock yourselves out. Oh, and never mind the majority of Australians supporting the passage of the federal hate speech laws last week, according to polling out this week.
One Nation's climate change platform reads like the rantings of a drunk in the front bar or a cooker who's spent too much time hunched over a bong. The old Climategate "scandal" from 2009 is dragged into the argument that climate change has nothing to do with human activity, even though the allegations climate scientists were doctoring research to prove global warming have long since been dismissed.
No, One Nation's platform tells us, climate change is probably more likely to be caused by volcanic ash and changes in the earth's rotational tilt. In its section on net zero, which also questions the science of climate change and the risk of rising sea levels, it presents "evidence" we shouldn't be worried.
Despite dire predictions low-lying countries would be inundated, "many - such as the Maldives archipelago in the Indian Ocean and Pacific island nations Marshall Islands and Kiribati - have grown in land area", it says. What it neglects to mention is that most of that small increase in land area is due to reclamation efforts to keep the sea at bay.
Net zero, it says, is "a vehicle for creating a socialist Australia in which citizens are forced under comprehensive government control".
So it's no surprise One Nation wants to bring back coal-fired power. It proposes three new plants at sites where they've closed down but doesn't say who'll pay. No shock either it stands opposed to locking up any more areas of natural forest which could be used for logging. And utterly predictable is its opposition to renewables and proposed ban on offshore wind projects.
On education, One Nation wants to restore........