Coalition MP Colin Boyce told climate science deniers blackouts a ‘big political opportunity’ | Australian election 2025

Coalition MP Colin Boyce told a group of climate science deniers that blackouts were “a big political opportunity” and that he had urged fellow MPs to adopt a “do nothing strategy” that would allow power outages and build opposition to net-zero policies.

A video of Boyce, posted on YouTube, speaking to the Climate and Energy Realists Queensland group, includes comments by the Flynn MP that net-zero climate policies “need a rethink”.

He said the cohort of like-minded politicians opposed to the transition to renewables “is growing”.

“Politically, how do you sell that? That’s the problem,” Boyce told the meeting in December 2023.

“I’ve said this many times to the colleagues, we have to probably adopt a ‘do nothing’ strategy, obviously fight the good fight.

“The ‘do nothing’ strategy is a tough love strategy where people will not understand what’s happening until the lights go out.

“When the lifts in the building stop working and the supermarket shelves are empty because the refrigerators aren’t working, that’s when all of a sudden people start to realise.”

Later, Boyce was asked a question about potential power outages and he responded by saying: “It’s a big political opportunity for that to happen.”

Boyce predicted power outages would be “along similar lines” to the 1985 South East Queensland Electricity Generating Board strikes during the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government, which caused rolling power outages for four weeks.

“It’s enormously frustrating and there’s no simple fixes to any of these problems,” Boyce said.

“To turn the renewable energy ship around, where it sits at the moment will take a change of government.”

The Nationals MP was a founding member of the “Saltbush Club”, formed to promote climate science denial, and was a signatory to an international statement claiming “there is no climate emergency”.

Boyce has also been an advocate of the Coalition’s plans to build nuclear power generation.

He told the group: “If I had my way I’d be building coal-fired power stations, full stop, that’s what I’d be doing.

“We have these enormous reserves of coal and we should be using it.

“Obviously as we go on to the future we should be exploring nuclear technology.

“In the meantime we need to maintain our traditional coal-fired power fleet.”

Guardian Australia contacted the Coalition and Boyce for comment but did not receive a response before publication.