In this interview, Saxon Davidson appeared on TNT Live to discuss the IPA’s research on the Nature Positive Plan.
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.
Vikki Campion:
Welcome back, I’m Vikki Campion. Saxon Davidson is here to discuss the proposed federal EPA. Saxon, this is being established under the Nature Positive Plan legislation, which went through last sitting where the government is establishing this environmental protection agency and wants to give this agency power over approvals, which contradicts the recommendation, The Samuel review, to retain approvals power under the minister’s discretion. Under this Nature Positive Plan as well, the government will be setting a 30-by-30 target, whereby 30% of Australia’s land and 30% of Australian seas are conserved, despite The Samuel Review not recommending that such targets be established. But you have done a great research paper with the IPA about the EPA. So can you tell us a bit about your research?
Saxon Davidson:
Absolutely, so this EPA is going to be wide-ranging and have a whole assortment of powers that are going to be brought in through two separate phases, but this EPA, we analysed the state EPAs because many states have environmental protection agencies already and we decided to look through how much is actually being spent overall and also on staffing in each of these agencies. And what we’ve found is that this federal EPA is going to cost about $1.8 billion per year with over a third of that being attributed to staffing alone. This EPA is going to have a staffing level of about 4,700. This is going to be one of the most resourced agencies in the country. It’s going to be the most staffed agencies in the country.
Now, the government responded to our paper saying that we’ve only allocated $120 million over four years to establish this agency. However, this is not what we’re saying. What we’re saying is once this agency is up and running, it’s going to cost exorbitant amounts of money and you only have to look at agencies across the federal government that once they’re established, it’s impossible to cut back and they just keep on growing and growing and growing. And unfortunately, this is what is going to happen with this new EPA.
Vikki Campion:
Well, this is it, and with this staffing expenditure, I think you said that in total you’re expecting, so they might … You just had 120 million, but they might go up to 694 million for the proposed EPA, is that correct?
Saxon Davidson:
So the staffing, once it’s up and running, is going to cost 694 million.
Vikki Campion:
$694 million. So how do you believe that these funds could be better utilised within the government because that’s a heck of a lot of money?
Saxon Davidson:
It’s a lot of money and it could be used to get down our national debt, cut down on deficits, increase spending on our pumping out economically competitive industries, but unfortunately, this is just not what’s happening under this current government. They’re increasing regulation after regulation, red tape after red tape, green tape after green tape on our most vital industries and this new proposed EPA is just another example of this.
Vikki Campion:
It really is. The expansion in bureaucratic staff alone is so significant. What are the risks to people really with this and particularly landowners I suppose, because those are the main ones which are affected? What are the risks to them from this significant expansion really?
Saxon Davidson:
Well, the risk to landowners is already here. As you would know, there are towers going over all across our regions. There are wind farms and solar farms or wind and solar factories, as I prefer to say …
Vikki Campion:
Me too.
Saxon Davidson:
… going across our farmland. The risk is already here and there may actually be greater risk beyond this EPA. The greens and the teals have been going on and on about introducing a climate trigger as well into the EPBC Act, alongside a new EPA and an EIA, Environment Information Australia, and a climate trigger will put at risk over $227 billion of investment at risk on the first day. This is not including any forward projects that could potentially be cancelled or potentially never go ahead. This is just an immediate cost to the economy with what the greens and the teals are demanding in order to pass this EPA, which is already going to be disastrous for our vital industries and particularly for regional Australia.
Vikki Campion:
It’s so bad. What can people actually do about it though? Because I know we’ve tried … Well, we have tried reaching out to Senator David Pocock and is our only … Where can we go with this? Because you do have … The greens are basically a major party now. They’ve got a lot of members.
Saxon Davidson:
Yes, exactly, but all we can do is pile pressure onto the government, explain to them what’s going on. We released this research and we’ve released more research over the previous couple of weeks outlining why this is such a disastrous plan, whether it be the climate trigger, the EPA, the EIA, exposing how this new EPA will be very secretive, very undemocratic. The whole idea of Nature Positive itself is undemocratic, considering that this new other agency that is also being set up alongside the EPA, Environment Information Australia, will be almost the sole arbiter about what the definition of Nature Positive is, even though that the concept of Nature Positive in the Australian context has existed for almost 19 months now. So all we can really do is pile pressure to this government, outline the facts and hope that the political pressure caves in on this government.
Vikki Campion:
Yeah, that’s basically it. You found that this would make the environment portfolio the fifth largest federal government portfolio overall. We’ve already got so many different agencies already. We’ve got ARENA, you’ve got the Clean Energy Group and then you’ve got all the state replications of that.
Saxon Davidson:
Yeah. No, exactly. The climate change portfolio has actually been expanding already before this EPA is even a legislated agency. It is the major reason why the amount of regulators in the nation has reached over a hundred thousand for the first time in Australia’s history. It is the fastest and largest expanding portfolio before we have these two new agencies which are going to basically overhaul the entire approvals process and the entire way that we regulate the environment and also our vital resource in agricultural industries.
Vikki Campion:
The thing, Saxon, though, is that surely there are normal human beings out there going, “Okay, well if we have all this green tape and we have all this red tape, how on earth are we going to build the millions of houses that the government saying that it wants to build and how are we going to provide the food and the fibre and the minerals and the resources to them if we lock up this land and these oceans as well?”
Saxon Davidson:
Well, they’re not thinking about that and they haven’t been thinking about that ever since they’ve been elected in May 2022. Every single piece of legislation regarding agriculture and regarding mining has been to attack it, to regulate it, to lock it up essentially. And this is just a continuation of what they’ve already been doing and it’s a continuation and it is an exacerbation of what they’ve already been doing. This government has been the most radical and the most antibusiness since Goff Whitlam 40 years ago. And the economic conditions are slowly hurtling towards what we experienced in the 1970s with stagflation and a lower business investment.
And it’s the first time since the 1970s we’ve had this many per-capita recessions as well. So the contrast is just stark. This is an antibusiness government. It’s an anti-resource government and we just simply cannot go on like this for much longer.
Vikki Campion:
Oh, we simply can’t mean, but all the polls indicating that labour is taking a bit of a hit, but I still think that, if there is an early election, they do have a chance of coming in a minority government partnering with those teals, which we do see so many times vote with the Albanese government. There are times where one or two of them won’t. I think they take it in turns, but what would a minority government mean for us?
Saxon Davidson:
A minority government would be disastrous for the country. There are so many disastrous economic green policies that exist and that the teals support. It would cost the country billions upon billions of dollars in extra spending, expansion of programmes that are costing the government mass amounts of money such as the NDIS, a further expansion of this green energy revolution that is far more aggressive than this already aggressive Net Zero Programme that the government’s currently running. I mentioned earlier our climate trigger research that would immediately come into effect, I imagine, as part of any negotiation with the greens, it would be the end of policies such as negative gearing, the expansion of mass amount of spendings in unproductive industries, expansion of the Future Made in Australia programme. It would be an utter disaster for the country.
Vikki Campion:
Do you mind, Saxon, if we go to a break and can you talk to us more about the climate trigger and maybe explain that a bit more to all of us? Is that fine?
Saxon Davidson:
Absolutely.
Vikki Campion:
Okay. Thank you so much. You are here. You’re listening to Saxon Davidson at the IPA on The Vicky Campion Show. This is TNT.
Advertisement:
What gets up your nose and really ticks you off? We want to hear from you. From the US and Canada, call 1-888-201-6425. From the UK, call 033-0024-1026. And from Australia and New Zealand, call 1800-670-310. Free speech is alive and well on Today’s News Talk TNT.
Affordable housing, we can build that. Sustainable housing, we can build that. At MIT Modular, we understand the importance of housing for all and the importance of design, cost and functionality. Our goal is to meet the needs of our growing population by converting shipping containers to livable units. If you’re like-minded and in a position to invest in something meaningful and life changing, we want to hear from you. We are a team of professional architects, engineers and financial and tax experts dedicated to offering unique solutions that provide a brighter future. Our Opportunity Zone Fund offers investors both real estate and operating business diversification, five-year tax deferral on capital gains, annual tax benefits and ultimately tax-free appreciation potential.
There are opportunity zones all over America. If you’re interested in learning more about our services, need affordable housing or want to participate in creating a new vision for tomorrow, give us a in the US on 385-985-5702 or read [email protected]. MIT Modular, we can build that.
For local, national and international news, lock it on TNT and you won’t miss a thing. You can depend on Today’s News Talk TNT.
Vikki Campion:
Welcome back to TNT. I’m your host, Vikki Campion, and we’re here now, we’re talking to Saxon Davidson from the IPA who’s been doing extensive research on the Nature Positive Plan and the establishment of a federal EPA. Now, Saxon, before the break, you were talking about the climate trigger. Are people across this do you think?
Saxon Davidson:
No, because it’s a bit of niche policy, but there is currently a private members’ bill before the Senate put forward by the greens, which would outline that projects above 100,000 tonnes of carbon emissions would be immediately cancelled with this climate trigger. And then anything between 100,000 and 25,000 would be up for approvals basis. Now with this in mind, this would cancel-
Vikki Campion:
Hang on, sorry, just one sec. So that’s no cement, that’s no ammonia, that’s no … So what are we going to do? We’re just going to rely wholly on China?
Saxon Davidson:
Yeah, essentially. This would be a disaster to our industrial, well, just industrial manufacturing base, almost our entire industry. Basically, we won’t be able to make things in Australia. This is currently before the Parliament and a private members’ bill put forward by the greens. It has spoken regularly as a need for the government within its environmental shakeup. And this will be a big negotiating piece for the federal government to put through their Nature Positive legislation. Now, this puts up $227 billion of investment, of immediate investment that’s already been put forward at risk. That’s not including any future investment that may come with future growing industries in other mining areas or in gas or in coal or in iron ore or in manufacturing.
This comes a grave risk to Australia’s economic future. This particularly, as you may guess, heavily impacts states such as Queensland and the Western Australia, particularly the Northern Territory as well. Those are the three most impacted areas. 75% actually comes from those three states and territory in the Northern Territory. This is a great economic risk to the country and has to be rejected wholesale. But desperate governments do desperate things and they might just agree to this or to a version of it in order to appease the teals and the greens in order to pass this already disastrous legislation through.
Vikki Campion:
So if you stop that and you stop with the iron ore production and you stop with basically digging coal and digging rocks out of the ground, then how are they going to have the royalties to keep their hospitals going, their roads going, their schools going. It’s that stuff which is propping up the budget in a massive way. I know the greens have this policy that they’re just going to tax billionaires, but the billionaires will just move. We see that already.
Saxon Davidson:
Yeah, absolutely. We see that. Across the world, whenever taxes increase to an exorbitant amount, people just move if they can. And they’re the lucky ones who are able to escape the economic nonsense that goes on. But for the people left behind, they’re left with a government that hasn’t budgeted for these awful policies and they get left behind with the bill that they’ll never be able to pay. The best example of this is actually where I am in Victoria, where people have moved up north into New South Wales and Queensland or out west to Western Australia and everybody else is left with the bill that is never going to be paid, but always going to be paid at the exact same time because they simply do not have the amount of people to tax in order to pay it off. But taxes just keep on increasing.
Vikki Campion:
And this is it too, with a bill like that where projects over 100,000 tonnes are immediately cancelled, that to me says, “Well, who’s going to pay for everyone’s [inaudible 00:16:20] because where are the jobs going? How are people going to work?”
Saxon Davidson:
“How are people going to work? How many people are going to lose their jobs?” it’s all a disaster. It’s an economic and humanitarian disaster, which we’ve been warning about the consequence of Net Zero for a long time now. Net Zero was always going to be a societal humanitarian and economic disaster for the nation. And as we accelerate further and further into this rabbit hole, we are slowly understanding or the general population is slowly understanding just how much of a disaster it actually is, how dark the rabbit’s hole actually gets. And we’re currently suffering the consequences of just being two years deep into Net Zero. As we accelerate, it’s going to become worse and worse for everyday Australians.
Vikki Campion:
Yeah, 100%. I think this is it, is that people are now, they’re under such pressure just particularly with their budget and it’s because of the electricity bills going up, but it’s also how much they’re getting taxed. They’re getting taxed massive amounts and then we’re giving, “Oh, well, we’re going to give that money to companies like big companies who have a lot of shareholders and a lot of money and we’re going to give it to them because they’re massive polluters and they’re going to tell us that they’re going to play this fantasy land of building wind and solar factories or green hydrogen.” And it’s like that reality is just crashing down right now. We’ve had BP, which is saying it’s pulling back out of, I think, its wind in Europe. We’ve got Fortescue which has gone, “Oh, holy smokes.” We actually can’t deliver 15,000 million tonnes of green hydrogen like we promised.
They are saying though that the federal funding that went into their projects is not dead money. They’re going to keep going with those projects, but that to me says, “Well, hang on, would this be viable without the taxpayer funds to begin with?”
Saxon Davidson:
Well, we know it wouldn’t be because otherwise it wouldn’t exist. So we got hydrogen projects up in Queensland as well and supposedly green hydrogen that’s going to get pushed forward. But this is just a classic example of the government trying to pick winners and trying to pick winners in industries that aren’t economically competitive. It’s a back to the future with for 1970s style protectionism, which we all saw resulted in stagflation, high inflation, high unemployment. And now we’re seeing both those numbers hovering around 4% at the moment and the government simply shouldn’t be picking winners. The government should be letting it to the market to decide what is the best available option to supply energy into the market.
And for decades, it’s been coal. It’s been gas. And also the best advantages to coal gas is that they’re baseload sources of power. They’re not intermittent such as wind and solar factories. And sure, hydrogen is baseload as well, but we simply do not manufacture the things that we need to produce hydrogen as well. States like Queensland haven’t built a dam in decades, and all of a sudden, they’re going to build 11 dam structures just to build these two hydrogen projects in regional Queensland. I don’t think it’s viable.
Vikki Campion:
They haven’t built dams in … Yeah, you’re right. Stopping all the dams for the Rookwood Weir, if you recall, for that, and now they’re going, “Okay, well, we’re going to have pumped hydro, which needs dams and we’re going to have hydrogen, which needs dams.”
Saxon Davidson:
Dams, yes.
Vikki Campion:
Saxon, we’re going to quickly go to the headlines, and then if we can come back and just touch again on the winners being picked and where this money is going, because we know some of these projects are actually failing. So you’re on The Vikki Campion Show on TNT. You’re listening to Saxon Davidson and he will be back after the news Headlines.
Newsreader:
Here are the news. Newsflash.
TNT Radio News. For TNT, this is James O’Neill. A strong majority of Americans believe President Joe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race due to concerns over his mental capacity. According to the new AP-NORC poll. Ursula von der Leyen has been re-elected for his second term as European Commission president, securing 401 out of 707 votes in the European Parliament. Israeli Defence Minister Yuval Golan has warned Hezbollah of a potential ground invasion of Lebanon that would be quick, surprising and sharp as tensions rise along the border.
Advertisement:
This July, we’re taking life seriously. Cardiac arrest is scary and more common than you might think. Did you know that every year, nearly 9 million people will experience a cardiac event outside of hospital? Would you know what to do? I’m Australian actor Steve Bastoni and I’m urging everyone to learn CPR as part of our Don’t Die July campaign. Visit dontdiejuly.com and sign up today because you can’t put a price on life.
Are you enjoying listening to TNT Radio? Do you think we’re doing a good job? Then please let us know. Why not leave us a like or a positive review or comment on Facebook, Gab or Getter. Help us get the word out as we cover the biggest topics of our time on Today’s News Talk, TNT Radio.
Vikki Campion:
Welcome back to TNT. This is The Vikki Campion Show. We’re here live now with Saxon Davidson from the IPA and we’re talking about a government which is determined to pick winners. So this is a problem, isn’t it, Saxon? Is that we’ve got taxpayer funding going into certain technologies which the government believes or has been conned into believing or has been brainwashed into believing, which is going to be the future of the Australian economy and it’s also going to save the world. What’s their track record like so far where we’re seeing with some of their hydrogen projects are just not getting off the ground at all? Is it right for governments to do this?
Saxon Davidson:
In certain circumstances, I can understand it, but in terms of green energy, I strongly disagree. It’s not like Peter Dutton’s plan with nuclear where we know nuclear is a proven technology and also we have abundance of uranium, the largest reserves in the world of uranium in order to power that. Unfortunately though, the jobs that are going to be funded in this sort of green technology revolution through the Future Made in Australia policy just, one, either aren’t there, or two, will not be able to replace in number the amount of jobs that are going to be lost through Net Zero policies in manufacturing and in agriculture and in coal mining or in mining in general or in electricity production. The numbers simply just do not add up.
Vikki Campion:
Yeah, exactly. And this is the thing that I love about all these. They’re like, “Oh, it’s going to be tens of thousands of jobs.” It’s like, “Yeah, we can employ tens of thousands of people-“
Saxon Davidson:
That’s hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Vikki Campion:
Yeah, hundreds of thousands of jobs, but are they high-quality jobs or is it the equivalent of effectively … If we decided to create a policy to paint every fence in Australia a different colour every day, there’d be hundreds of thousands of jobs, but what is that doing for the economy?
Saxon Davidson:
Well, we know they’re not high quality. The IPA does regional tours all throughout regional Australia. And when we went through the Darling Downs, where in the Darling Downs the largest solar farm or solar factory in Australia is, it’s supported around 500 jobs in the construction phase. Now, 500 jobs just south of Chinchilla is an amazing thing for regional Australia, but there were only 20 ongoing jobs which were low paid and largely filled by backpackers who were fulfilling the requirements in their visa. And all they’re doing is wiping solar panels. These are not high-quality jobs.
Vikki Campion:
Well, this is the thing, I was talking to some electricians and I was saying, we’re in the New England REZ, I’d say, “Well, if we’ve got all these solar factories, where are our electrical trades putting on apprentices and giving them …” And they said to me, “No, no, no. This is not a skilled trade. This is an unskilled labour trade. You’re literally just screwing solar panels in.”
Saxon Davidson:
Yes, they’re not high-quality jobs and they’re replacing some of the most high-paid jobs in the country. These are picking winners and the winners are not the Australian people. It’s not regional Australia. It’s not mainstream Australians. They’re picking winners and the losers will be Australians through their higher energy power bills, Australians through their lost jobs and Australians through their lost manufacturing base.
Vikki Campion:
Yeah, well, I’ve done my column but for tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph on the green hydrogen fallacy and one thing that I found in my research was, so far, I think they’ve promised tens of thousands of jobs for Queensland in green hydrogen. They’ve promised something like 9,000 jobs in green hydrogen just in Gladstone. The Fortescue facility in Gladstone did open a couple of months ago, and far from 9,000, they’re actually employing 26 people there, 26.
Saxon Davidson:
Well, the jobs lost in Queensland to Net Zero is going to be quite drastic. We released some research before going to Queensland on one of our original tours just four or five months ago, which found that in excess of over 150,000 jobs are at risk from Net Zero from energy production, coal mining, mining in general and also agriculture. The jobs are simply not going to be there to replace these jobs held by mainstream Australians, and to the larger extent, Australians in our regions, which put food on our table and make sure the lights stay on at night.
Vikki Campion:
Yeah, and that’s the thing. It’s going to impact families as I see it, because currently, if you run a mining wage, you can support a family with that. One parent can stay at home with the children and raise them as a family unit. If you’ve got … The second that those jobs go from being six figure to five figure, both parents are going to have to go to work. The kids are going to have to go to daycare. You’re going to have to … That’s it. The dream is over. And then what’s the point?
Saxon Davidson:
Well, yeah, their way of life is going to be just be completely upended and a lot of these communities will just simply disappear. And we’ve seen this before. We saw this when Hazelwood went in Victoria. A lot of people just simply moved because the jobs were no longer there. The communities will just simply disappear and the vibrant regional communities we have are simply going to disappear if we get rid of these jobs and get rid of these industries.
Vikki Campion:
Yeah, exactly. You don’t have to look far. Just look at the declination of sheep where there were once great big shearing towns, those just don’t exist and everything shuts down. You don’t have a bank, you don’t have an ATM. You lose the bakery. And it’s this progression of services that disappear until all you’re left is with a school with a handful of kids in it. And it is quite sad and I don’t know if people are going to wake up in time, quite frankly. Do you think they will or-
Saxon Davidson:
Well, people are starting to realise that, when you get rid of our energy production, that their power bills go up. So I think people are slowly realising the cost of all these Net Zero policies, but it’s not happening at a faster enough rate, but hopefully that we can surmount more political pressure, more policy pressure onto the government. And also when people’s power prices and people’s food prices continue to go up, the cost of living pressures are simply going to become too high. There will have to be a scaling back of these policies at some stage.
Vikki Campion:
There has to be. There has to be because it is too high already. It is too much. We’ve got Saxon Davidson here with us. He is a researcher with the IPA. Saxon, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it.
Saxon Davidson:
Thank you for having me.
This transcript with Saxon Davidson talking on TNT Live from 19 July 2024 has been edited for clarity.
