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

You can giggle, but if you came out and advocated for it, it would be much braver. Member for Warringah, if you believe in it, stand up and say you want it in your electorate. You could do it, but, of course, you won't.

The issue is that if you want zero emissions—I've got no problem with that—the most logical way to do that is nuclear. That's the way to do it. But, of course, once more, they all line up and say they don't want nuclear. Let's go through it. They don't want windmills. We can see the lead being taken by Dr Bob Brown, formerly of the Greens, and Christine Milne, to whom the baton had subsequently been passed. She also doesn't want it. They don't want gas because it relies on fracking. They don't want coal because they just don't want coal; it's against their religion. They don't want nuclear because they seem to be stuck in the mindset of the 1980s, with Chernobyl. We all know about that, but that was 1950s Soviet technology. If you've ever driven around in a 1950s Soviet car, you know how that is.

So where do we go? How does this work? They deny the fact that in the Australian economy our largest export is fossil fuels, and they've got no suggestion of what's going to take its place. They put up China as a good example—China! China is building in excess of 600 coal-fired power plants as we speak; they're building them right now. And then they say, 'Well, Germany.' Germany are refurbishing their brown coal-fired plants, so what I suggest you do is have a look at the most efficient way and the cleanest way to produce power from the food stocks that are available at the moment—high-efficiency, low-emission coal-fired power—and show the world for our largest export the best technology and the cleanest technology in how it is utilised.

We have a schism that's happening in the Labor party because we've got the Joel Fitzgibbon faction that believes in the coal industry and we have Pat Conroy, the member for Shortland, who doesn't believe in the coal industry even though many of his workers are in the coal industry. I think an epiphany will come Pat Conroy, the member for Shortland's way very soon.

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