An Australian coal miner has gone viral after summing up the political establishment’s obsession with renewable energy in a 40-second speech.
Stuart Bonds, who is running as a candidate for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party in the seat of Hunter, spoke out at a Meet the Candidates event sponsored by Coal Australia on Wednesday focused on energy security and cost of living.
His comments about wind turbines and coal power have since gone viral on social media and attracted hundreds of supportive comments.
Can you tell me why we load millions of tons of Coal on 100 carriage trains, ship it all the way to China, where THEY burn it for cheap electricity, turn it into windmills, shipped back to Australia where we need hundreds of them that wont last even 20 years, and with all this… pic.twitter.com/h45pWKYvcE
— Stuart Bonds (@StuarBonds) April 7, 2025
“Can you tell me why we would load trains, millions of millions of tonnes of coal on 100-carriage trains, shipped all the way over to China, and then they burn it for cheap electricity, turn it into wind turbines, and ship them back,” he told the forum.
“And then we’re going to build them all throughout our community, you will need 1,000 of these things spinning 24 hours a day to replace one 2000 megawatt coal-fired power station.
“So by the time you build them you will be rebuilding them – they don’t last 20 years. If you think that this, and the infrastructure, and the tens of thousands of kilometres of transmission lines, is going to make your life cheaper, well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in New York.”
Sky News host Andrew Bolt responded to the video by saying: “Perfectly summed up. And it is all madness the way that Labor is running this economy, this mad green agenda, and you don’t need an economics degree to see it, you just need politicians with the guts to say it, and say it now.”
Mr Bonds, who describes himself as a farmer, coal miner, tradesman and staunch advocate for the coal industry, wants more power plants built in the New South Wales Hunter Valley mining region where he lives, and has called for more investment in rural infrastructure.
Labor MPs Dan Repacholi and Meryl Swanson also attended the forum, as did Sue Gilroy from the Nationals, Louise Stokes from the Greens, Suellen Wrightson from Trumpet of Patriots, Paul Farrelly from Family First, and One Nation candidate for Paterson Arnon Wither.
Ms Wrightson also described net zero and the renewable energy sector as “crazy”, and called for a “burn, baby, burn” approach to coal power, echoing Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” oil and gas agenda.
But Ms Stokes said “to think the coal belongs to us is arrogant” and Mr Repacholi argued that most countries around the world have set net zero targets, which do not mean the end of coal.
Header image: Left, right, Stuart Bonds at the coal event (Facebook).
