Pauline Hanson’s urgent wake up call for Anthony Albanese: ‘I will not stand by while Australia is driven into the ground’

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson will introduce an urgency motion calling on the government to ditch its ‘disastrous’ net zero emissions target.

Senators are expected to vote on the motion on Monday afternoon, adding pressure to calls from within the Coalition to scrap the policy.

Ms Hanson wrote to Senate President Sue Lines on Monday morning, advising of her intention to introduce the motion ‘as a matter of urgency.’

‘I recently spoke to a small business owner who told me they’re paying $10,000 a month just for electricity, on top of rent. It’s no wonder 30,000 small businesses have shut their doors in just three years,’ she said.

‘Net zero is a scam. It’s destroying our industries, gutting our manufacturing, crippling farming and food production, driving up the cost of living and pushing families into poverty, homelessness and despair,’ she said.

‘We are being led by fools. Shame on every politician who continues to push this madness. I will not stand by while Australia is driven into the ground.’

While the motion is expected to be defeated given Labor and the Greens combined hold the Senate majority, Ms Hanson said her motion would force Coalition senators onto the record, with many known to oppose net zero measures.

‘We know where Labor and the Greens stand, but I want to hear where those in the Coalition stand on this,’ she said.

‘It’s an urgency motion and anyone who abstains from this is a coward.’

Net zero has emerged as a fracture point within the recently reconstituted Coalition, with Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce teasing a private members bill to do away with it. 

On Wednesday, The Australian reported Nationals leader Michael McCormack would support Barnaby Joyce’s bid, undermining the Coalition’s ongoing net zero review. 

It was a shot across the bow for the senior Coalition partner, signalling to its more moderate members the Nationals were not prepared to retire the issue. 

Ms Hanson said welcomed the move by the two Nationals MPs, adding her party had known ‘all along’ that net zero was a ‘bad idea’. 

‘While some National Party members have come to the realisation that net zero has been a bad idea that has hurt productivity, cost of living, and the agriculture sector, we’ve been saying this all along,’ she told the Daily Telegraph. 

‘Barnaby Joyce to his credit seems to have turned the leaf and recognised that these issues are having an impact and he’s attempting to reverse the damage he and his Coalition did in government.’

In place of the policy, she wrote the government should ‘prioritise providing Australian families, farmers, businesses and industry with cheap and reliable energy.’ 

She said it would help to ‘protect jobs, ensure energy security, lower the cost of living and restore Australia’s economic competitiveness’. 

Ms Hanson added Australia’s ambitious target of carbon neutrality by 2050 was difficult to square with its relatively minor impact on overall global emissions. 

‘While China and India are exempt from cutting emissions until 2060 or 2070, and the USA refuses to play ball, we’re punishing our own country for contributing just one per cent of global emissions,’ she wrote. 

‘Between them, those three nations emit over 50 per cent but it’s Australians who are made to suffer.’

According to the CSIRO, Australia contributes just over one per cent of global emissions while China, India and the US comprise a combined 52 per cent. 

Yet, of the four nations, Australia has the strictest net zero horizon.

New Zealand earlier this year reversed course on pursuing net zero by investing money into new off-shore oil and gas exploration.