Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to start with a quote from Baltasar Gracian, of 1601 to 1658—don't you worry about him, Mensa! One of the key issues there, he said, was that it's better to be done on price than to be done on merchandise. What's happened to the Australian people is that they were done on both by the Labor Party at the last election. They've been done on both because the most pressing issue out there right now is the cost of living. People cannot afford their power bill. They cannot afford to fuel their car through the year at the prices there are at the moment. They are struggling with their grocery bill. And each one of these—power, groceries, fuel—is attached to both domestic and international so-called 2030 legislated targets and 2050 legislated targets. If you believe in the targets, you believe these people should be poor. If you want to legislate for the targets and drive people towards it, then you are responsible for the fact of what is happening to their power bills. You are responsible for what is happening to their fuel bills. You're responsible for the fact that fertiliser prices are going up, reflected in their grocery bills.

We are seeing what's happening around the world. We know what's happening. The power crisis in the UK and in Europe did not start with the Ukraine war; it started with the wind drought in the United Kingdom, where we had tens of thousands of people who had to go and find new providers because their power contracts fell over. What we now have, what we are seeing as this crisis goes on in Europe, is the reality coming back. There are 21 coal-fired power stations now coming back online in Germany, and that has been brought forward by a minister who's a member of the Greens. Why? Because they need the power to provide the basics to people—basic dignity back into their houses and the capacity to afford to heat their houses.

We are seeing, in what is happening around the world, what will happen in Australia if we do not have a reality check and understand that there is not one developed country in the globe that has brought down power prices with wind or solar—not one. Why do people believe that we're somehow unique and that it's going to happen here? It won't. It is not going to. The facts are there for everybody to see. Look at your power bill. That is what happens when you get tied to targets. It is up to the Labor Party now. Because they are the government, they are now responsible for what happens next. What happens next is now on their shift.

What we're also seeing quite obviously is that we get a sense of ridicule from the Labor Party because we suggest nuclear. There are small modular reactors that are coming on. You want smart jobs? You want zero emissions? You want high-paying jobs? That's where the world is going. And they laugh at it. Let's look at some of the countries that are so stupid, such as the United States, France, Sweden, Argentina, China, Japan! All these people must be so stupid, because they're all developing it! Look at the companies, such as Hitachi, Westinghouse, General Electric, KEPCO, Mitsubishi, Rolls-Royce—all these silly people, all these silly countries, developing small modular reactors! And, yes, I would have one in New England. Rolls-Royce is developing one now for the city of Leeds—16 metres high, four metres wide, and it will produce enough power for the city of Leeds, over 500,000 people, with zero emissions. So one of them—16 metres high, 40 metres wide—will do 1½ Canberras. Of course I want to have that sort of technology. Of course we want it here. I want to produce it here. I want to use it here. All we are doing at the moment is digging up the rocks for other people to be clever. Let's be clever ourselves.

I started with Baltasar Gracian but I'm going to have to finish with Beyonce. I was looking at one of my favourites, 'Say my name'. But now, for the Labor Party, it's not 'Say my name'; for the Labor Party, for Australia, it's just, 'Say the number, say the number. If no-one is around you, say, "$275, I love you."' They will never say the number. It's just beyond them. 'They're acting kind of shady and they don't want to call us baby.' I think it's best summed up by Beyonce Knowles, born in Houston, Texas, in 1981 and still with us today: 'Why don't you say the things that you said to me yesterday?' You know why? Because it is not the truth. They know what the truth is. They know that their promises on power were total and utter rubbish.

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