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

I thank the honourable member for his question and note that the wine industry is doing spectacular work in the seat of Calare. It's great to see the wine industry will be going from $2.2 billion to $3.5 billion by 2020. A remarkable turnaround in prices, and it has happened under this government. It's one of the sections of remarkable turnarounds in the record-producing agricultural sector, record to our GDP. But in all these things—the wine industry, the beef industry, the sheep industry and the irrigation industry—there is a major threat, and that is the price of power. If you can't lift the water for irrigation, then it doesn't matter what's going down the river; you can't actually irrigate. It doesn't matter what margin you make on the wine industry if it's gobbled up by power prices. Most importantly, the member for Calare would be well aware of those people who live in weatherboard and iron in Orange and Bathurst. How do we actually respect the dignity of their lives by keeping affordable, reliable power so they can maintain the dignity of their lives and maintain their standard of living?

We have seen the threat to that, and no better expose would be that of South Australian Labor. What we saw when South Australian Labor knocked over the Northern power plant—in fact, they blew up the chimney to celebrate it—was a complete fiasco in power prices in South Australia. The lights went out, the lifts stopped, the traffic blocked up and people felt insecure because of Labor Party power policy. And then, if that was not enough, they went to Victoria. And what did we see from the Labor Party of Victoria? The closing down of Hazelwood. What was the effect? It put under pressure manufacturing workers' jobs. It put under pressure, and lost, power workers' jobs. What else did it do? Of course, it put up the price of power. So every person, no matter where they were—whether they were in Wodonga, Mildura or Shepparton—had their lives made worse by the Labor Party in Victoria because they lost money and were put under pressure.

And now federal Labor do not stand by Liddell. We can see this because they're all going for that great title that they now have in the Labor Party. They used to sing Solidarity Forever, but now they're all fighting for the title of 'Basket Weaver No. 1'!

The member for Hunter did a good job last night when he said: 'Andy Vesey and AGL did us all a big favour. They did what no-one else has ever done before.' Well, he's right there: they're doing what no-one else has ever done before, which is to put the member for Hunter's workers out of a job, to put more pressure on manufacturing workers and to put more pressure on coalminers. They don't believe in blue-collar workers anymore.

Then we see the Labor Party policy—this is from Mark Butler, 'Wind Chime No. 2': Labor will introduce—

See this speech in context