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

I thank the honourable member for his question. As always, I note his service to our nation and thank him for his service to our nation, and his service goes on. I also thank him for his support of the CopperString project, which is so vitally important for our nation. It's vitally important to make our nation as strong as possible as quickly as possible.

It's also noted that many of our major exports, in fact, eight out of 10, come from regional Australia, whether it's iron ore, coal, gas, bauxite, gold, cattle or sheep. These things are incredibly important because they give value to our currency. Value to our currency allows us to import products and get the terms of trade in place to support our standard of living, which is vitally important. If we lost those major exports, that, of course, would have major inflationary effects on our imports and would affect our standard of living. Things would become more expensive, and people would become poorer. That's why this side of the House believes so strongly that we maintain our standard of living by maintaining a strong balance of payments and strong terms of trade through our exports. But look at the other side. I had a look, and Mark Butler says—

Honourable members interjecting

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