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

I thank the member for Hinkler. We were up in the member for Hinkler's area not that long ago and had to deal with cane farmers. One of them is spending $135,000 a quarter—over $540,000 a year—on power. One of the major reasons that they are spending that sort of money is because of an issue that is being debated over in the other place at this moment, which is, of course, the carbon tax. It is just like how the member for Blair keeps his people poor. They are trying to keep them poor up in Central Queensland as well. What we are trying to do, obviously, is remove the carbon tax and, by removing the carbon tax, start letting more money go back through the farm gate—back to those families, back to those mums and dads—and put dignity back in these farmers' lives.

The cane industry is a very important industry. It is one of the major industries in Queensland. Seventy per cent of Australia's sugar canegrowers rely on irrigation to produce a crop, and so much of the time irrigation relies on power. That is the only way you can do it. But what we have seen here—

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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