Katter’s Australian Party Senator for Queensland Fraser Anning has strongly supported former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s call for Australia to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

“Tony Abbott is dead right. Now that the US is leaving, we should withdraw from the Paris Agreement as soon as possible,” the conservative Queensland Senator said.

“For a country that produces less than one percent of the world’s emissions to damage its economy and erode the living standards of its citizens to recklessly pursue so-called renewable power sources was always unwise. However now that the US, one of the world’s biggest emitters has pulled out, for us to remain is downright idiotic,” Senator Anning said.

“Of course my view has always been that we should never have signed up to the Paris Agreement in the first place. The whole thing always had a surreal ‘fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden’ quality. And I’m sure that we wouldn’t have done so if the climate change obsessed US Obama administration hadn’t rushed to join.”

“The counter argument from Foreign Minister Bishop that we need to remain in because pulling out would somehow damage our international reputation is one of the silliest things I’ve heard in a long time,” he said.

“Australia should always act in the best interests of its people, not because our politicians don’t want to be embarrassed at diplomatic cocktail parties.”

Senator Anning also warmly endorsed reported National Party proposals to establish a $5billion fund to construct up to three new coal-fired baseload power stations to ensure reliable and affordable power into the future, describing the idea as “very much common sense.”

 “There are only three reliable, low cost options for power generation – nuclear power, coal power and hydro-electricity. Australia is too dry to derive all its power from hydro and for decades there has been hysterical opposition to nuclear power, so that leaves only coal fired power stations as an option,” he said.

“If Australia won’t embrace nuclear power then the only real alternative to coal for most of the country is tallow candles,” Senator Anning concluded.