Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to acknowledge the member for Makin in allowing me to continue on. I apologise for being a little bit tardy. It's interesting to hear from the Labor Party about austerity. We've just heard the Treasurer from Victoria, the honourable Mr Pallas, say that they're going to have a new tax—basically, a tax on people—because, he says, the government has done their job and now the people have to pay. At the same time as they're proposing a tax, they've somehow managed to find $21 million for Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital for gender work with children. I don't quite know how that works. I imagine that, in the future, we will have some major problems with the psychology of these children who will have had their lives dramatically altered and who will also have, no doubt, some other medical issues that will follow on closely behind that. But that goes to show you the sometimes very confused—one might suggest, perverse—approaches that Labor Party economics has an inclination to follow.

We have only one role in this nation: It is to become as powerful as possible as quickly as possible.

They talk about things that are happening across the world in regard to climate policy. Well, across the world they don't have to deal with issues such as China just above their doorstep. Across the world, in Europe, it's a completely different world from here. What we have to do here is to understand where our strengths lie and how we need to build on them. And we need to build on them with a sense of realism.

Our exports and imports determine our terms of trade and underpin our standard of living. I note the member for Capricornia; I suspect those clothes are imported; I'd say the shoes are definitely imported. The member for Flynn is sitting beside me. That's a beautiful suit, Member for Flynn, but I'd bet you it's imported. I have a watch on; it's a Garmin; it's imported. I drove here in a car that's imported; the fuel in it was imported. There are terms of trade. And our biggest exports in this nation—as the member for Flynn would know better than anyone else, followed by the member for Capricornia—are fossil fuels, those being gas and coal. Those are our biggest exports. They're not the biggest exports of Denmark. They're not the biggest exports of the United Kingdom. They're not the biggest exports of Germany or Finland or Spain, or of all the other people across the planet. But they are our biggest exports. So our dynamics are completely different.

Second to fossil fuels is iron ore. As a unit, it's our biggest export. That's fact. As much as I love the beef industry, and I'm part of it, it is equivalent to 40 days of iron ore exports. As to our barley exports, it is equivalent to three days of iron ore exports. That's how strong that is. And iron ore exports are underwritten by the mining of metallurgical coal.

We, in becoming as powerful as possible as quickly as possible, have got to understand that our economy is basically made up of, as quoted in the paper the other day, black rocks, red rocks and shiny rocks. That's basically where the vast majority of our wealth comes from, and we have to have a budget that underpins the infrastructure that allows us to grow that section of our economy, because we don't have the Bavarian Motor Works, or BMW, cars, or Krups or Siemens. We don't have Microsoft. We don't have Boeing. We don't have those industries. We don't have Dell computers. We don't even have—in a funny way—the New Zealand dairy industry. In New Zealand, their biggest export is dairy. So we have to build on the reality of what is Australia. If we follow the policies of what is Europe, then we're going to be a country that moves away from the prosperity that it has enjoyed, almost taken as a birthright.

One of the fundamental pieces of infrastructure that would underpin the realities of our economy would be a coal-fired power station. If we're going to export this product to the world, one would suggest that we build a power plant to show the world how to use it in the most efficient and clean way—a step-down coal-fired power plant.

The Upper Hunter election was so essential for the Labor Party to win, to put on a good show. But, because of their religious fervour for the climate movement, often just climate socialism—an excuse for the socialisation of private assets and the diminution of people's capacity for private enterprise—and because their attachment to this religion is so affirmed, they were willing to sacrifice votes in the Upper Hunter. They were willing to throw the Upper Hunter under a political bus because they will not step an inch away from that zealotry—that zealotry that resides in the Manager of Opposition Business. It is so affirmed in him that, in a public broadcast, on Q&A, when he was given an opportunity to say, 'We'll support a power plant,' or even to avoid the question—he's a very astute political operator—he couldn't. It is one of their 'Ten Commandments': thou shalt always move towards the endorsement of climate zealotry and thou shalt not support any form of fossil fuel power. That's what he did and he did it in remarkable form. That was seen in the Upper Hunter.

You know the saying 'You can't get more Labor than Cessnock'? Well, you probably can now; it's probably Annandale. In Cessnock, the Labor Party got only one in five votes—one in five. One in five votes is catastrophic. But still—and maybe it's noble—they're attached to this zealotry, because they're going to catch up with people across the world! They're going to catch up to Denmark, they're going to catch up to Liechtenstein, they're going to give Monaco a run for their money—in climate policy. They're going to try and drag us to the realities of Europe, even though we live in Australia with the realities of Australia.

We live also with the paradox that our major trading partner has become rather overt in its foreign policy, and that is the regime—not the people; the regime—that runs the communist People's Republic of China. If the prospect is having in the same epoch a comparable reduction in US power and a possible sliding of overall US power and, most likely, by 2030, the supremacy of a regime in China and its power in both military and economic terms, then what is really the task before us? Is it to go down a policy structure which will have no effect on the climate whatsoever? It's merely tithing that won't even pay for the cloth of the tabernacle. But, if we have to move down that path, what would really be the great challenge of our time? Wouldn't it be the liberty and freedom of our children to live in a world that we live in—to live in a world where they could say what they liked, to live in a world where they could protect their foreign investment from people who would basically bully their way in, to live in a world where they wouldn't live in fear?

But if we were to move down that path, what would be the great challenge of our time? Wouldn't it be the liberties and freedoms of our children to live in a world that we lived in, to live in a world where they could say what they liked, to live in a world where they could protect their foreign investment from other people who would bully their way in, to live in a world where they wouldn't live in fear? The only way we can deliver that to our children is to make this nation as powerful as possible as quickly as possible, and the only way we can do that is with the most sober view of just what is before us. This budget builds on the infrastructure so we can bring that about—the money that is continuing to be spent on Dungowan Dam, the money that will be spent in the future has been allocated for Mole River dam and the money that has been spent on the roads. We heard the Deputy Prime Minister give a fair run down of that for the New England today, so I won't be repeating it. But the money has been spent across our nation to basically let our infrastructure work in a better form.

I would like to also remind people of the money that we, the coalition, put aside—that the National Party drove to put aside—for the study to take the Inland Rail from Toowoomba down to Gladstone and that is going to be vitally important, because for those exports of especially the black rocks but also the shining rocks—the gold—we are going to need to grow Gladstone. Gladstone Harbour is one of the great generators of wealth for this nation. I will give you a bigger generator of wealth: the biggest generator of wealth in this state is Newcastle Harbour. With the export of those cursed black rocks, it is the biggest exporter earner for New South Wales, which some sectors wish to close down. I acknowledge the member for Brand, who has arrived. But when they close them down, they never propose anything to take these people's places. They never propose anything for where these people's jobs are.

In closing, people can get fascinated in this mythical sort of policy approach, this sort of Fantasia of policy approach and the only thing that brings sobriety back in his policy approach is a thing called elections. Because at elections, they say, climate change is a bacon-and-eggs policy. Climate change is the egg—the passing interest—but the bacon is the election because that is when the posterior is on the line. So that by-election in Hunter Valley was an absolutely sobering call for those opposite to get their policy structure right or they will never be the government. And for our side: do not go wandering off into this butterfly-chasing approach or we will lose votes to other parties. It is as simple as that. People will vote for their jobs. And out there, overwhelmingly, I see a greater logic in the economics of this nation than resides in this building.

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