On Wednesday, 15 October 2025 I spoke in Parliament about the LNP's so-called Energy Roadmap, which does nothing to prevent the worsening impacts of climate change.
You can read my full speech below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard) here.
When it comes to life-saving pill testing facilities that are facilitated and funded by and for the community, the LNP is perfectly willing to intervene and to shut them down. But when it comes to the t ransition away from fossil fuels to safeguard our future, it seems this government’s approach is to throw its hands in the air and simply say it is not for them to interfere.
We need a plan to get off coal and to create new jobs, but the LNP has given us a so-called energy road map that does nothing more than describe the existing disastrous system. They are the government. They are supposed to create policy and yet all they have done is describe the mess we are in.
They have neglected to include a few things anyway, like what happens if we keep burning coal indefinitely, like the 185,000 Queensland properties at very high risk of disaster, or little things like heat-related deaths in Townsville quadrupling, or Brisbane flooding 314 days out of the year. That is directly from the federal climate risk assessment report which, by the way, the federal Labor government tried to bury.
Queensland’s coal-fired power stations were due to close by 2035. Now, under the LNP’s plan, they will continue pumping millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year indefinitely, making net zero emissions by 2050 effectively impossible. That is not pragmatism; that is straight-up climate vandalism.
This is not just cost to the climate we are talking about. It is $1.6 billion of Queensland taxpayer dollars to maintain these aging power stations which are themselves increasingly susceptible to the impacts of an unstable climate. Ironically, Rio Tinto has flagged that its Gladstone coal-fired power station will close early in 2029 to be replaced with renewable energy generation and storage. Even their corporate mates can see the writing on the wall, and they have the gall to tell coal communities that they are planning for the future. What absolute bunkum! This is not about jobs. The Electrical Trades Union called BS on that. They have said the LNP is ‘leaving workers in limbo, shutting their eyes to reality and pretending it will go away’.
Supplying Queensland’s energy needs is not some kind of intractable mystery. Diversified renewables, high-powered transmission and storage deliver cheap, clean and reliable energy. We are past the curiosity phase. It is time to act.
The fact is that the far-right nutters run the LNP, like our environment minister who is on the record expressing his scepticism about climate science; like the Deputy Premier who loves nothing more than imitating Trump—he is really behind the road map. The LNP have not just slammed on the brakes on Queensland’s clean energy transition, they have reefed up the handbrake, given us a U-turn and they are speeding back to the dark ages.
(Time expired)
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to a point of order. I make the point that the member for Callide has
been repeatedly and vocally interjecting when he is not in his seat.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Kempton): That is not a point of order. Take your seat. I call the
member for Mundingburra.
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On 16 October 2025, the Deputy Speaker clarified.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Kempton): Members, at the conclusion of his adjournment speech on 15 October 2025, the member for Maiwar raised a point of order in the following terms—
Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to a point of order. I make the point that the member for Callide has been repeatedly and vocally interjecting when he is not in his seat.
I responded that it was not a point of order, directed the member to resume his seat and called the next speaker. Upon reflection and consideration of the record, it appears that the point of order by the member for Maiwar may have been valid. I remind all members of the House that it is against standing orders for a member to speak or interject unless they are in their own seat.