The Australian Bush Summit is back – the Murdoch media’s annual regional roadshow sponsored by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, who is using the opportunity to present a highly dystopian vision of Australia as it heads towards net zero.

The Bush Summit kicked off in Broome, Western Australia, on Wednesday, and then heads to South Australia on Friday, and then to Queensland, NSW, Victoria and finally the Northern Territory.

It features climate deniers such as Ian Plimer, now employed by Rinehart, along with Coalition net zero critics such as Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan, and Sky News identities such as Rowan Dean, Rita Panahi, and its chief executive Paul Whittaker, as well as local Murdoch media journalists in each state.

But the summit carries some political weight. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Opposition leader Sussan Ley, and the state premiers of South Australia, Queensland, NSW, Victoria and the chief minister of the NT are all due to speak, along with leaders of the fossil fuel lobbies, as well as the Clean Energy Council and VicGrid.

Rinehart will not be there in person but, according to the schedule, will deliver a video message at each meeting, introduced by the likes of Dean, Panahi and Joyce. A lengthy  op-ed published in Murdoch papers on Wednesday gives a taste of the key message – net zero will be a disaster for the country.

According to Rinehart, net zero means not being able to run emergency services, the flying doctor, hospitals and even old people’s homes because they either cannot go fully electric or renewable, or because they rapidly exhaust their emissions budget for the year and have to shut down.

“Just imagine one of these aged centres, closed for much of the year, given no carve-out,” Rinehart writes.

“Who is going to look after the elderly, when aged care facilities will have to close in accord with net zero requirements?

“They simply can’t meet the expense of their staff, and all maintenance people, cleaners, caterers, plumbers, electricians and more having to be provided with EVs, plus to pay for more solar panels and wind towers for their intermittent electricity.”

Rinerhart is also concerned about defence, and the ability to operate submarines, to fly jets and helicopters and maintain surveillance 24/7 in a net zero world.

“Our national defence has not been supported with adequate budget increases for actual defence — that is for investment outside of Canberra admin — positioning us at the lack thereof level (sic),” Rinehart writes.

“And unlike other countries, who carved defence out of the Paris accord, guess what, we didn’t.

“AI and communications required by defence, not just when the sun shines and the wind blows at suitable speeds, but required 24/7.

“Navy ships and submarines: are we going to change them to nuclear, again, where is the extra budget for this?

“Jets and helicopters – do we really want to subject our expensively trained, too few pilots and crews to biofuels? I sure don’t.“

It’s difficult to know where to start with all this, but it’s probably best to point out that Australia’s net zero target is currently set for 2050 — some 25 years away — and net zero means that fossil fuels can, and will still, be burned for some facilities, but they will have to be offset, hopefully by some credible activities.

Of course, some are pushing for “real zero”, arguing that — in the light of the latest climate science and some terrifying predictions about the Antarctic — the net zero targets that Joyce and Canavan want to repeal are too weak and an excuse to do not very much in the coming decades, effectively kicking the problem down the road.

Some, like Rinehart’s iron ore competitor Andrew Forrest, are determined to show that “real zero” can be achieved relatively quickly.

Forrest’s Fortescue Metals is spending more than $4 billion on giant electric haul trucks, electric mining equipment, and more on the wind and solar farms and big batteries that will power the mines and their electric equipment. He intends to reach “real zero” by 2030 – in just five years.

But Rinehart doesn’t buy that.

“The cost of net zero is so huge, it doesn’t just stop at electricity bills for wrongly called renewables,” she writes. “We can’t believe the propaganda – countries that increase green electricity in reality all end up with higher electricity costs, albeit some costs may be hidden by taxpayer subsidies.

“This leads to the deindustrialisation of our country, meaning job losses, stress and no doubt having to raise taxes to be able to pay for extra welfare payments.

“How can net zero be paid for, when Australian Governments overspending already have our country in record debt?

“Am I being pessimistic? Well, who hasn’t heard of AI, and that the developed and developing world is using AI to advance and cut costs. How can we compete, if we don’t have the huge amounts of 24/7 reliable electricity that data centres for AI require?”

Rinehart finishes off by saying she wants to “stand up for truth.” But the “truth” is not exactly what we are hearing each day as the Murdoch media and conservative shock jocks tear into renewables and EVs on almost a daily basis.

Take, for example, this story about 2GB blaming local power line problems on surrounding wind farms:  Town to get diesel generators as back up for dodgy power lines: So 2GB lays into wind energy.

Or the Victorian council lamenting the fact that its staff did not want to drive EVs because of the misinformation that caused them to fear “self igniting” EVs and other issues. See: Councils battle disinformation and fears of “self-igniting” EVs as they try to go electric

You can be sure that Plimer, Canavan, Joyce, Pauline Hanson, and the Sky News crew will tell Rinehart more or less what she wants to hear. It will be fascinating to hear the extent to which Albanese and the state premiers seek to put the record straight.

Republished from Renew Economy, 21 August 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.