In this interview Adam Creighton appeared on Credlin – Sky News Australia to discuss the IPA’s research on Net Zero.
All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Peta Credlin:
Lots to get across, so let’s bring in my panel now. Victorian Liberal MP, she’s a firecracker, Nicole Werner, and the IPA chief economist, Institute of Public Affairs. Of course, senior fellow too, Adam Creighton. Nicole, I’m going to go to you at the top of the show. Good on your boss for getting out there and saying, “No biological men who are sex offenders in women’s prisons.” Can we go a bit further and say, “Just no biological men in women’s prisons?” Come on.
Nicole Werner:
Yeah, and look, it’s against community expectations, absolutely. And reading this particular story, particularly as a parent, and any right-minded Victorian just made me sick to my stomach the fact that a paedophile father would be housed amongst women, vulnerable women in prison-
Peta Credlin:
Correct.
Nicole Werner:
… is horrifying.
Peta Credlin:
All right, well let’s… You put some quiet pressure on your boss to go the whole hog, and you might be back in the race electorally. Let’s talk about the research out from the Page Institute in relation to all of these third-party organisations, and a lot of them are foreign entities, Adam, that are funding renewables projects, the lobbying around renewables. We’re talking about 170 million in the last financial year alone. And they’re linked to outfits like the Sunrise outfit out of the US.
Adam Creighton:
That’s right. The Sunrise Project, which is partly funded by George Soros, and the Clinton Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. I think something like $100 million actually over the last decade has come from these foreign institutions, these foreign foundations. And these foundations have an ideological bent. They’re extremely pro-solar and wind, they’re extremely against fossil fuels, and they are interfering in Australian politics.
And I think actually this inquiry in Canberra that the Greens and Labour have set up is actually going to backfire, because there’s a lot of these figures are actually coming out of the various submissions that have gone in. And actually, I did have a look today, the number of submissions, 169. The bulk of the submissions are from ordinary Australians who are clearly not funded by big oil. And from a random sample of them, they’re all accusing the government of misinformation. So far from the big end of town actually funding the critics of climate zealotry, it’s actually the other way around and…
Peta Credlin:
And remind people what this whole inquiry is meant to do. It is cover to start filtering what we can discuss about climate online.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah, look, that’s right. I think the government’s worried, because more Australians are realising. Certainly the Greens and labour are realising that Australia’s emissions are very tiny. It’s very expensive to do net-zero and probably impossible, and support for it is thin. And so they’re frantically trying to find ways to crack down on so-called misinformation. But it’s not misinformation, it’s just a valid scientific debate. And I would say just like COVID as you would agree, most of the misinformation is actually coming from the government and they’re very…
Peta Credlin:
And we all found out how false a lot of that was.
Adam Creighton:
Yes.
Peta Credlin:
And we all heard at top of the show, Stephen Nowakowski. He’s a long time political Green supporter, and he’s done the mapping. It’s irrefutable, it’s out there, let people judge. Let’s go to the crime crisis in Victoria. Obviously, Nicole, on the weekend we had statistics come out just prior to the weekend, pretty horrific statistics across the board. And then we had an incident yesterday, four young people in a vehicle driven through the CBD of Melbourne. Unfortunately, you’ve got the case where the Premier’s gone missing over the last two days. Happens too often in Victoria. Let’s have a listen to commitments made by your boss today, Brad Battin.
Brad Battin:
When the Premier’s got nothing to say, that’s the reasons you wouldn’t come out and speak to the media. The Victorian Liberals and Nationals, we’ve got plenty to say when it comes to crime in Victoria and how we can keep the community safer. With break bail, Jack’s law, Restart and Newstart and $100 million dollars in crime prevention, we’ll come out each and every day and talk about these issues-
Peta Credlin:
We have that story obviously last week, that a lot of Victorian police, that they don’t feel supported. They’re jumping ship. They’re going to work for the police in Queensland. And then reports from the Herald Sunday, there’s been a 36% rise in Carjackings to March this year.
Nicole Werner:
That’s right. And what that looks like statistically is nine carjackings happening every single week. And what is really alarming about this, Peter, is 70 per cent of them, these crimes are being committed by people under 25. So they’re these youth offenders. And we even have seen in these same crime statistics that it’s one per cent of the population that are responsible now for 40 per cent of the crimes here in Victoria. Many instances of these being these repeat, recidivist offenders. And this is why we have urgently tried to pass in the Parliament break bail, face jail, so that we actually… Instead of weakening the bail laws like the Allen Labour government did in March, we actually get serious about being tough with consequences for these criminal offenders.
Peta Credlin:
Let’s talk about EVs. The Treasurer says he’s not in any hurry to put taxes on EVs. Of course if you drive an EV, Adam, you’re not contributing to the maintenance of our roads. But he wants us to get up to 80% EVs by 2035. How’s that going to work?
Adam Creighton:
Yeah. Well look, it’s not going to work. The reality is, even in the state of California in the US, which has huge subsidies to EVs, the share of new car sales have actually been falling. So they’ve fallen over the last six months. And so they’re only-
Peta Credlin:
Even in California.
Adam Creighton:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Even there. And so here, they’re only at 7%. There’s no way that they’re going to get to 50%, and I think the government realises this. And so a couple of months ago, they did want to equalise the taxes. They wanted to have some sort of charge on EVs. Which they should, because as you point out, fuel excise is meant for the care of the roads, for the upkeep of the roads. But now they’re backing off, because they’re worried that Australians aren’t going to buy them. And they’re not. We can see overseas that they’re not going to, and that’s even with a glut of cheap Chinese EVs. So yeah, look, it’s rather embarrassing for the government I think to change their tune, and so quickly in just a couple of months.
Peta Credlin:
All right, I leave it there. Thank you both.
Adam Creighton:
Thanks.
This transcript of Adam Creighton on Credlin – Sky News Australia from 30 September 2025 has been edited for clarity.
