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

Mr Deputy Speaker, it's a cult, isn't it? Their whole approach to how they're doing this has gone from reasonable to cult-like. Like all cults, it's all smiles when you meet them but it's misery when you're inside. Like a cult, you can't argue with them. You're either a denier, if you don't agree with them, or you're a believer. 'Don't you believe? Are you going to deny?' It's absolutism. There is zero opportunity for you to question them, and then they always put at the end the imminent calamity, the end of the world. You've got to sit inside the vestibule, inside the cult, to save yourself and be part of the virtuous.

It also has a lack of meaningful disclosure and explanation of the finances. You never quite get to the bottom of who's making the money and where it's going. There's always a select group of people who do make the money, and they make a lot of it. And it's in their interests not to let people see the darker side of how the cult works.

The cult work with a nomenclature that's benevolent. They talk about things such as wind farms. What fruit doth grow from this tree? Apples? Pears? What grows from it? Spuds? Nothing. It's not a farm. Of course, here you see the absolute attachment to it. They call them 'renewables'. There's nothing renewable. It's an intermittent power source. They become landfill. Bisphenol, which is part of the blades, is highly toxic. You can't do anything with the blades except bury them. Wind towers are future obsolete trash that is parked on the Australian landscape, and for what? It's because someone is making a buck. Someone is making a big buck, and I'll go through some of that a little later on.

We have to ask ourselves a question: what is the biggest threat? Are you going to go to war against warm weather? Is that what you think will take away your house, threaten your children, take away all your freedoms and take away your property? Is that what you think the threat is? Or could the threat possibly be a totalitarian superpower that has the capacity to remove the ownership of your house, to remove your rights, to basically make your children part of a vassal state? For us to stand up against that, we must become as powerful as possible as quickly as possible. It is our only alternative. It is the only thing we should be focused on. Going down this path is not going to allow you to do that.

If you want to know how it is going, I can tell you. Name me one global manufacturer who wants to move to Australia—just one. They're all running for the door—aluminium, steel, plastics, oil refining, manufacturing, even food processing now with Cadbury. They are leaving us. They are going because we are taking this economy nose first into the dirt by having this cultish attachment. Then we have the Peter Pan platitudes that rein out as they read the dot points and the speaking notes from the guru—'These are the notes that you will follow.' The recipe for what we're doing now is seen in the cake we are having to eat. People cannot afford their power bills. That is the reality. Pensioners and people who were doing it tough and are now poor. There are people in my area who are off the grid. They just cannot afford their power bill. They cannot pay it. We are doing this to them.

We hear these mythical statements about the jobs of the future—the renewable jobs of the future. I will run you through some coal towns. There is Biloela, Gladstone, Muswellbrook, Gunnedah, Singleton, the Port of Newcastle, Lithgow—just to name a few. Where is the renewable town? Where is this town with all these magical jobs that people are doing? It must be there somewhere? There must be one of them. We are told about all these jobs. Where are they?

In my electorate there is a town that had over $2 billion spent on swindle farms. Let's call them for what they are: swindle factories. where they just rip you off. That's all they are doing—and, if you are dumb enough and gullible enough to be ripped off, you should get ripped off! The population of Glen Innes has gone up by two people. That's pretty good for $2 billion. It is $1 billion a person. What an absolutely remarkable return for that investment! But we continue down this road. So much of what people have said is completely incorrect. This is mad! It is the tulip mania of 2024, where everyone is in the 'south sea bubble', everybody is so enthralled and everybody has drunk the Kool-Aid—but no-one seems to have the ticker to say, 'Hang on; I'm going to look a bit closer into some of this.'

So how does this work? Let's see how these swindle factories get around it. They have secret agreements. Minister Bowen said, 'Oh, we can't tell you what they are getting'—these swindle factories—'because it is commercial in confidence.' It is the taxpayers' money, for goodness sake! We're entitled to know what they are getting. We hear that they get underwritten for their capital. Even if they produce fairy floss, they get paid. Who pays? The little old taxpayer and the pensioner. The retailer just puts it on your power bill. We have renewable energy credits. We just hand them money. They sell power in five-minute blocks. Imagine if we sold oxygen in five-minute blocks. There would be times in the day when you would be willing to pay a lot of money for that air if you did not have it, and the price of air would go through the roof.

Imagine if you did something reasonable and said, 'If you want to go into this market, you've got to supply power for 24 hours, or for a week,' then all these swindle factories would be out of business because they can't do it. It's intermittent power, it's not renewables. You're forced to buy the product—you have to buy it. There's a quota—you have to buy this product, and whether you like it or not, it's going to be rammed down your throat. And then they come out and the taxpayer pays again. Are they going to pay for 28,000 kilometres of poles and wires? Is there any more featherbedding you can give to these swindle factories?

I want to quickly run through some of these people—these benevolent, environmentally conscience people. Apparently, these people are worried. I just want you to ask yourself the question: do you think these people are worried about the environment or do you think that they think you're a sucker and you need to be ripped off? They're going to take the money out of your pocket. In my area, the Northern Tablelands Wind Farm—7,586 hectares—is owned by Origin, but you've got to remember that Origin is going to be bought out by Brookfield of Canada and EIG Partners in the US. Stringybark Solar Farm is owned by Saudi Arabia; Armidale BESS by GMR Energy and Gore Street Capital, which are Chinese companies; Doughboy Wind Farm is Korean; Bendemeer Renewable Energy Hub is Singaporean; Ben Lomond is Meridian Energy from New Zealand; Infrastructure Capital Group—now Foresight—is from London; the Dungowan Hydro Battery is French; White Rock Renewables is Chinese—Goldwind Science & Technology; Thunderbolt Energy Hub is French; Metsolar is from Saudi Arabia, Abdul Latif Jameel Energy; a company in Inverell is Canadian; and at Loomberah-Timbumburi we have Switzerland and Turkiye. Obviously, people in Turkiye are very worried about Australia these days and cannot get to sleep in Istanbul worrying about the environment in Australia! Then we have Merriwa—well, that's the Maoneng Group in China. I'm sure that in China and Beijing they're up all night, going: 'Gosh! We've got to look after Australia! We're worried about global warming in Australia! We have to help them out!' Or are they thinking, 'These guys down there are complete fools and we're going to take them on.' Hills of Gold Wind Farm is French.

This one's a good one: Calala. Calala is Equis Energy. This was owned by a Nigerian billionaire. He hopped into it and then sold it off to BlackRock in the USA. I'm sure he would have woken up in Nigeria, and said: 'I must help! I must be involved in this gargantuan, titanic struggle to help out Australians in the New England to get renewables! It is my life calling!' I think he probably had some good accountants and they said: 'Mate, we're onto it! These clowns will do it and the money just flows out. They underwrite what you earn, subsidise everything you do. You have to buy your product and then you just flip the deal, mate. You just flip the deal and put the balance in your pocket!'

I could go on. You see what it is—we have the Danish, French and the Philippines, with Newman Solar—all of this virtue. These will be obsolete pieces of trash—and that's what they are, static capital in an advanced market. Nuclear will come in, whether you like it or not—it will be like trying to ban mobile phones or colour televisions. It's coming. Then they will be obsolete and, if it's so virtuous, who do you think would be responsible for dismantling them? If it's so virtuous to stick them up, surely the government should think about what they're going to do when it comes to pulling them down? Guess who's responsible for that? The cockie! The good old farmer. Their own ombudsman, Andrew Dyer, says it's $600,000 a pop to dismantle one! Which farmer do you think is going to have $600,000 per tower? None!

Right now we have banks going out and saying, 'Mate, we're worried about your security.' We had a person in our area who died, tragically. When they went to sell his place, bingo! Caveats on it—they can't just straight sell it. These problems all turn out because they had really good solicitors. These swindle factories have really good accountants and really good solicitors, and suckers for a government. And the government have great advisers. They're in here with the lanyards on, 'Budget time; come on!' They sweet-talk the fourth estate and they drink the Kool Aid—they're in here as well. So much for the ABC and Four Corners. When it really does require investigative reporting, no, they won't touch it because they've got you worked out too. The Nigerians, the French and the Chinese—they've got your number. You total and utter suckers.

If you want zero emissions, then you can only go nuclear. If you said to me, 'What's your alternative?' I don't know. Look at Snowy 2.0. I was sitting at the table when they said it was going to cost $2 billion and I thought that was too much. Then it turned to $4 billion, then $6 billion, then $8 billion and now it's $12 billion. It's heading to $20 billion—for 2,000 megawatts for 10 days? Liddell did 2,000 megawatts 24/7, 365 days a year, and you blew it up. You shut it down. You've got Bundamba. I think that's going to be $14 billion and is going to provide 2,000 megawatts for a day. This is insane.

Do you realise how this cult has worked—how you've fallen into the trap? Do you sit back and just stare and go, 'Hang on, that can't be right—what we're doing there'? But it is happening.

In closing, you're going to hear Minister Bowen—he used a quote today, and I've got no idea where it's come from but I'm checking it out. You ask, 'Do I believe Minister Bowen? Is it a bird. Is it a plane?' No, it's 'Super-swindle-man'. Do you believe him? Maybe you don't believe me. Maybe you don't believe him. I'll tell you what you should believe: believe your power bill. Believe that letter with the little plastic window that turns up. Believe your power bill; it does not lie. Your power bill is going through the roof because your government is a total and absolute sucker.

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