Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am definitely mentioning office addresses; I would not mention their private addresses—that is their private thing.

What we find at the Manic Monkey Cafe of inner suburban Nirvanaville are the Greens offices. They are saying once more that we should be taking the wealth from regional areas and helping out the traffic congestion in the centre of Adelaide, in Surry Hills, in Paddington. This is why people believe their whole political philosophy is so fanciful. And where are they getting this money from? They are getting it from the mining tax. What don't they believe in? They don't believe in mining. What have they asked for it to do? They have asked for it to pay $280 billion worth of expenses. How much does the mining tax bring in? It brings in $100 billion. So how much is their black hole? $180 billion. What do they bang on about at the door? 'You've got a black hole.' You have just got one issue—you fall flat on your face. This is why it is just total and utter hypocrisy.

Why don't you move a motion, if you believe in the regions, to discuss the inland rail? We should be discussing sealing the third road across Australia. We only have two sealed roads going from east to west in this nation. There are only two possible ways you can go from east to west in the nation of Australia in the year of our Lord 2013 and remain on a sealed road, and that is bizarre. Why don't you move a motion about that? Why don't you move a motion about the Indigenous communities out west and how we should get mining resources to finance their services?

To be honest, I believe that the benefits from the mining boom should be invested in regional areas. That is why we believe in royalties to regions at a state level, because the royalties are a mechanism of state government, so royalties from state governments should be invested back into regional areas. I have got no arguments with that whatsoever. I think that Brendon Grylls in Western Australia has been commended by the people of his state when they gave him a seat because that is what he stood behind: royalties to regions. The issue is the absolute hypocrisy of the Greens who are becoming less believable by the moment.

Because this motion is so hypocritical and so unbelievable, it calls into question things that are going to come to light in the very near future. We have also to test the Greens' belief in whether they are going to vote for the censorship of the Australian media as it comes forward with this so-called media policy from Senator Conroy, which in regional areas is going to bring about greater centralisation. He is dead right: he said that I crossed the floor against centralisation; I absolutely did. This piece of legislation he proposes brings about greater centralisation of the media in regional areas, and it will be interesting to see whether the hypocrisy in this is also evident in how the Greens vote in that media legislation. It brings about censorship. It is absolutely bizarre.

It will be interesting to see whether the Greens, who are the shining orb of life, truth and wonder, will vote for transparency in the media in this legislation or for censorship. That will be another interesting thing. It will be interesting to see whether they vote for the guillotine to shut down the debate just like they want to shut down the media. It will be a fascinating to see as to whether they take it to a Senate inquiry, because they believe in the committee system. Will they take it to a thorough Senate inquiry or will they crawl under a rock because that is what their coalition partners, the Labor Party, tell them to do? It is all going to be there for us to see within seven days. It will be very interesting.

You cannot wonder why the people of Western Australia no longer vote for you, because then there will be other states that will not vote for you. They are watching you closely, and the Greens seem to have lost their soul—they continue to lose their soul. This is an absolutely hypocritical motion, because you do not believe in the mining tax. It says you want to get money from an industry that you do not believe in and you want to invest it in your backyard where your offices are. You are where you live, and you live in the inner urban areas. You want the money from the regional areas to prop you up.