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

This is a constituent statement for both my area and the whole of Australia. To defend a nation, you are going to need a variety of things. You're going to need intelligence. You're going to need an air force. You're going to need a navy. You're going to need an army. And you're going to need industry. We are single-handedly destroying our capacity to defend our nation because of this bizarre cultlike approach to net zero. We had this week the announced closure of Tomago. This is disastrous for our nation, and it's a clarion call on how pathetic and ridiculous this intermittent power policy is. It is hurting Australia, and we have a duty to stand up and call this for what it actually is. What else do we need to happen? We've got Kwinana in Western Australia that's closing down. We're down to two oil refineries. Our plastics industry is gone. Our glass industry is gone. Our urea industry is gone. This is hopeless! Yet we continue on, thinking that, without the participation of the United States, China, India, South-East Asia, Africa, South America and other countries that are pulling out, Australia is single-handedly going to change the climate, no matter what you think you are doing to it.

We have got to ask ourselves this question: if we are put in a time of adversity, where are we going to get our plastics or our aluminium from? Our steel industry is on its knees. How are you going to turn this around? They don't give you warning that something is going to happen—that's the whole point. Surprise is a crucial element for any adversary and how they deal with you. If we do not have the supply lines, and we have to rely on another country that hasn't gone down this insane path of intermittent power and net zero—are we just totally reliant? Are we absolutely certain that that process is going to work?

We also now have NRG, the power plant in Gladstone, announcing that it might close. That's the aluminium industry gone. That, of course, means Gladstone is out; it means your cement industry is out. And we continue on and continue on, thinking that we are somehow going to prevail in this nation by closing down industry, shutting up farmland and spending—they talk about a trillion-plus dollars. Where are you borrowing that from? You've already got a trillion dollars in debt! Where are you borrowing the rest from? How are you going to pay this back? There's got to be, somewhere, an epiphany of logic that comes into this. But it's not happening. I heard Minister Bowen say yesterday—I couldn't believe it, 'We're making good progress.' Good progress off a cliff! Good progress to where, Minister? Where are you intending to end up? We have got to find reverse on this, or we are in dire trouble.

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