Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

Amazing. We have just been discussing inland rail and exactly what it is going to do to assist regional production. I am absolutely proud that I am part of a government that is actually delivering this. It is going to be seminal to the advancement of these regional areas. But what is also amazing about the inland rail is that it gives us the chance for further production of steel—maybe steel in places such as Arrium at Whyalla. I was at Whyalla last week and at Whyalla they are very excited about the 800 kilometres of steel they are going to lay down for the Adani mine.

We actually believe in working men and women having a job, and they will be supported by this. It looks like we have some interesting friends. It looks like the CFMEU are onside with us and the AWU are onside with us. But there is one group that are not onside with the steelworkers. There is one group that is not onside with the coalminers and that is the Australia Labor Party, because the Australia Labor Party have given up on representing labourers. They are too cool for labourers. They think that labourers are a bit passe. They have moved on from labourers. So we will start looking after labourers, we will start looking after the people in the steelworks and we will start looking after the coalminers, because we know Labor are not going to look after them. We will start looking after them by making sure that we rollout the inland rail and the steel requirements and making sure that we support these jobs and that we give these people these opportunities. So it is a great future we have in agriculture. We have the runs on the board. We had 23.7 per cent growth in the 12 months to December 2016. We are actually making people wealthier. We have record prices in cattle— (Time expired)

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