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

'The people of Melbourne are not asking for miracles; they're asking for courage'—so have the courage to put the windmills up in your electorate, Member for Melbourne. Have the courage to put the solar panels over your parks, Member for Melbourne. Have the courage to actually live your virtue, Member for Melbourne. Don't just foist it onto us; don't foist your garbage and your virtue onto our seats for us to live with. Put the transmission lines over your suburbs, Member for Melbourne. It's very easy to be brave when you're actually brave when someone else has to pay the price.

I say to the member for Melbourne: how would you feel if you came back one day and found a plastic bag tied to your gate with a peg telling you they're going to put transmission lines all over your property? They didn't even have the dignity to come into your house and knock at the door. I say to the member for Melbourne: how would you feel if I took an easement through the middle of your house as you walk out the door and enforce it with security guards and a $12,000 fine if you don't abide by it, backed up by police? I say to the member for Melbourne: how would you feel with helicopters and planes flying over your place to check what you're doing?

I say to the member for Melbourne, with your courage: how would you feel if you couldn't pay your power bill and you've been forced out of your house to live in a car, because of the virtue of certain areas where they did have the money to pay for things? I say to the member for Melbourne from me, as the member for New England, that this is personal. This is really personal. I see the member for Blair nodding. I don't know whether you're in agreement or whether you actually believe it. I know the member for Blair is very close to people who this is very personal for them as well.

When we had two people, to be quite frank, with English accents, one with a big gabardine coat on and a big scarf and a lady with him who looked like she was off to the races, appeared on my neighbour's place—he is off the grid; he is totally renewable. They have no electricity to their house. That is my neighbour. They just appeared at his house and told him not to discuss it and told him that the transmission lines were going to go over the middle of our valley, over our airstrip that we use for firefighting to put out chemical fires, near his house. His house and my house were actually in the grey area that's shaded in by the corridor. When I saw them, I never turn up and say, 'Do you know who I am?' No, I just turned up in work clothes. They treated us with complete contempt. We were just mud under their feet. Then later on I said, 'I'm going to fight this,' and they basically said, 'Well, you can do what you like.' I said, 'I am actually in politics,' and they went: 'Oh, well, whatever you want. Go your hardest. I don't care.'

Then Vikki Campion, my wife, turned up. They said, 'Who are you?' in a sort of disparaging way, and she said, 'Well, I'm a columnist for the Daily Telegraph.' They said, 'No media allowed at this meeting,' and she said: 'Well, hang on, you've just turned up at my place. It's not an official meeting to just launch yourself on our place.' I said: 'Absolutely the media's allowed here. We live here.' They said: 'You're not allowed to report anything we say.' We said: 'We will report everything you say.' For me, after this one and after just listening to the member for Melbourne, that is what is happening to us.

I tell you—you see, in New England, I got a good swing to me, both in the primaries and in the two-party preferred, because we are standing up against this garbage—I will fight this garbage. For the first time in my life, this vote actually comes back to my valley, to my people, to the people who are not on the grid. They can't afford electricity. You guys just don't know about it. You talk about it. You talk about people with lived experience. You have no lived experience of this; none. For this one, I don't care where it takes me. I'm going to fight this one to the very bitter end.

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