One Nation is promising to push power bills down by embracing coal and natural gas.

Pauline Hanson joined One Nation’s Victorian leader Warren Pickering on Monday to announce the party’s energy policy ahead of the upcoming state election.

Standing in front of the Loy Yang power station in the Latrobe Valley, Senator Hanson said power was the most important thing for the Victorian economy, as she unloaded on the nation’s commitment to net zero.

“We’ve seen that both the Labor and the Coalition governments have imposed policies on the Australian people which are destroying the farming sector,” she said.

“Not only that, the industries (like) manufacturing, and small business, we’re driving a lot of this overseas, which shouldn’t be happening.

“You’ve seen a rise in your power costs over the years, where a lot of farmers, families and pensioners – everyone – cannot afford power bills anymore.”

Senator Hanson said One Nation’s policy would deliver growth and prosperity by bringing “power bills down”.

“We are the only party that is speaking common sense on this whole issue, pushing back against this ridiculous waste of taxpayers’ dollars,” she said.

Mr Pickering said the party’s energy policy would include abolishing net zero subsidies.

“Now, that includes abolishing all net zero subsidies and taxpayer subsidies that are currently funding projects that are decimating Victorian farmlands,” he said.

“We know it’s an ideologically driven nonsense that is dead in the water.”

Instead, One Nation plans to lean into the energy resources that previously made Victoria an energy-abundant state: Coal and natural gas.

“We do not have an energy resource problem in Victoria. We have a policy problem,” he said.

“We intend to focus heavily on gas. Specifically, we are five years behind on exploration drilling in both the Gippsland and the Otway basins for gas reserves.

“Now, there’s an estimated 30-year supply of gas in those reserves alone, and that industry still employs up to 40,000 Victorians.”

Mr Pickering said gas had been the “lifeblood” of residential and commercial enterprises in Victoria, but there needed to be policies in place to ensure Victorians had first access to it.

“We need to have price discipline to ensure that Victorian gas goes to Victorians first and foremost, and any surplus can then be exported,” he said.

One Nation also plans to revive the state’s brown coal industry, promising to tear up plans to close the Loy Yang power station in 2035.

“We intend to lean heavily back into brown coal and provide the industry security that this industry needs to ensure that it can meet Victoria’s power needs now and into the future,” he said.

“You cannot decimate an industry, tell them it’s going to close in three to five years, and expect any company to tip investment into infrastructure upgrades.

“Now, under a One Nation Victoria government, Loy Yang will not be closing in 2035. It will remain open for business for years to come, because we understand that energy resources is the economy in Victoria. It is the gross domestic product output.”

One Nation is also pledging to repeal the Nuclear Activities Prohibition Act of 1983 so the state can partake in the “future of nuclear technology”.

Senator Hanson said she was not against diversifying the energy grid but that the only way to deliver a productive state was through cheap power.

“You can only deliver a productive state or nation through cheap power,” she said.

“Cheap power was always delivered to us, the Australian people, through coal-fired power stations, and that’s where we need to go to do that.”