Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to say that we're getting close to the end of the year but I'm going to be part of a process of ending the year as we're going to start it next year. We have been trying so hard to get the member for McMahon to go to some of the demonstrations where people are clearly voicing their absolute disgust in the processes around both offshore wind factories and onshore wind factories. Madam Deputy Speaker Claydon, I've been in your area, where thousands of people turned up to protest against these wind factories, but they are not being listened to. In fact, the absurd position that the minister holds is that they are items of adornment. He thinks they are items of beauty. They are detested—and the transmission lines that come with them, the fact that they litter the landscape and the environmental damage they do. These things have to be stopped.

On Thursday, in Martin Place, there will be yet another demonstration, with people coming in from the Illawarra, from the country and from Newcastle. We say to the people of Paterson, Newcastle, Shortland, Dobell, Robertson, Cunningham, Whitlam, Gilmore and Eden-Monaro: if you're not listening now, you'll certainly be listening around election time, because the capacity to swing the votes, to change your future, is there. I look forward to once more addressing this. Might I say: don't worry; we're coming to Canberra early next year.