Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

It's great to have all their attention for once. I'd like to thank the member for Maranoa for his question, and he understands full well how important energy prices are and how important it is to keep blue-collar workers in a job, especially in the meat-processing industry, especially in the abattoirs. There are so many abattoirs in his electorate, like John Dee at Warwick and Western Meat Exporters at Charleville. I remember actually getting the deal through for Western Meat Exporters in Charleville when I worked for QIDC. It was a big deal then—$8 million. It now employs hundreds of people. That was a great outcome for Charleville.

For Hall egg farms at Millmerran and all the irrigators in the Darling Downs and out at St George, electricity prices are terribly important. We're now seeing, in places such as St George, that they're going from electricity back to diesel. Why are they doing that? They're doing that because power prices under the Queensland Labor government are hopeless. What's happened is Queensland now has the dearest power prices in Australia, and that is a remarkable effort for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, because she had to get around South Australia to get the dearest power prices, and South Australia's were the best in the Western world!

So what we have to do in our policy is to make sure we get clear transparency so that people can change between accounts. We're making sure that the gas prices, at Wallumbilla, are down, and now the spot price is down between $7 and $8. Wallumbilla is also in the member's electorate. At one point in time Darren Lockyer played there. We're also making sure that we keep the coal fire burning, because, if we don't keep that coal fire burning, you're not going to have any blue-collar workers.

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