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

I'm going to start this a long way from the sea. Back in 2001, I was in Cloncurry. I was a campaign for a Senate seat, which was successful. I was having an argument with a guy from the Port of Newcastle, and it almost turned into a physical altercation. Common sense got the better of my valour, and I went to my hotel at around half past 10 or half past 11. I turned on the television and there was what I believed to be a Bruce Willis movie on. I wasn't really interested. The strangest thing happened. I turned to the next station, and you wouldn't believe it, the same movie was on. So I changed to the third station and the same movie was on. Then I realised it was not a movie. It was the anniversary of today. It was 9/11. Terrorists had just flown a plane into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, and thousands of people were killed.

What is important about that? It was the first instance of the rise of totalitarianism in a very emphatic way. The world changed, and it changed right at that moment. The rise of totalitarianism has continued. You would have to say that, since 11 September 2001, it has not got better; it has got worse. We've seen Putin and his incursion into Ukraine. Most especially, in our region, we've seen the actions of a totalitarian regime in the Chinese Communist Party—not the Chinese people, but the Chinese Communist Party—and its unilateral actions that work against democracy. Democracy is on the wane. Democracy is becoming smaller. And we have to understand how history works. If we deny history, we're not only fools but also dangerous. History pulsates in and out. Power pulsates in and out. Democracy pulsates in and out. Totalitarianism and the rise of one power to subjugate another to take over areas is just the nature of history. It's the nature of humankind. So we need to become as powerful as possible as quickly as possible. It is absolutely indelible in what this nation has to do.

We need a defence force. Without a defence force, we wouldn't have to worry about Indigenous policy because there would be no Indigenous policy because we wouldn't have a nation. We wouldn't have to worry about climate change anymore because we wouldn't have a nation anymore. You wouldn't have to worry about your house because that would no longer exist. Forget about your super—it's irrelevant; it's gone. Most importantly, the freedom for your children would also be gone. At best, they would live in a vassal state as supplicants and subject to an iron boot at worst. People say that's excessive. It's not. That's just the history of the world. That's just how it works. We have a massive step to take, and we better do it in a big, big hurry.

If that round that was fired at former president Trump had gone about an inch and a half to the right, the United States of America would be an entirely different place. It would have no doubt fallen into a form of civil strife. What is relevant to that is that it would have had a huge effect on Australia. What would be their concentration on foreign policy when dealing with massive issues on a domestic front? The issue for us is that other people would note that straightaway. They would say, 'You are now weak; you will now have a different attitude to what we say to you and the demands we put on you.' Remember, the Communist Party of China has already put its demands on Australia. It's not hidden; it's written. We know what they are—they're there. Are we in a position now where we're ready for that? Are we in a position now where, if others who we rely on were distracted, we'd feel confident that we could defend our nation and all the issues we hold dear, whether we're from the right or left?

We had to take a huge step, and AUKUS was a huge step. When I was deputy of the National Security Committee, starting this process was an imperative issue. We've heard so much about the technicalities of this legislation, and the historical memoir of it is part of this, but it is only one part. We have so much more to do. We have to become as powerful as possible, as quickly as possible. To do that, it's AUKUS but it's also everything else. We have to be the best at agriculture. We have to have an education system which matches places such as Singapore. We have to have a manufacturing sector that thrives and grows and is absolutely at the forefront. We have to have the capacity to produce pharmaceutical goods. There is a whole breadth of issues that we have to go to the forefront of.

Apart from the defence mechanism of nuclear submarines, there are also demands on Australia to become vastly smarter and vastly more competent. It is going to require thousands of highly skilled technicians, nuclear scientists, boilermakers, fitters and turners—the whole gamut. In fitting that process in, we have to have a wider agenda within Australia to grow and to nurture this. These people will not just turn up overnight, nor do we want them to just disappear when they're finished. It's one of the reasons why we also need a nuclear power process in Australia. It fits hand in glove with this. As part of this debate, we have to acknowledge that, in the defence of this nation, we need this skill set to work with it.

I want to dispel a couple of notions for people. First of all, nuclear power works with about three to five per cent enriched uranium. We've had black rocks that boil water, create steam, turn a turbine and create power—that's called coal. We have another rock that boils water, creates steam, turns a turbine, superheats gas and creates power—that's nuclear, and that's three to five per cent. Highly enriched uranium is about 98 per cent. Australia is developing nuclear reactors that are highly enriched to drive nuclear submarines, but not in Australia. Rolls-Royce is doing it for us in the United Kingdom, but we are paying for it. That's right at the cutting edge of technology.

We show the willingness to do it in an area where it really does require a skill set, and nuclear power is actually way down at three to five per cent, as opposed to 98 per cent; it's completely different. In fact, sometimes the fuel source for nuclear power is decommissioned nuclear weapons. In Australia, we know where we are. We have got to take this step or live in the complete naivety that the world will just leave us alone. It is so dangerous to think like that, because it just won't. It never has done and it never will. If you doubt that, turn on the television and have a look. Whether you want to look at the Gaza Strip or Ukraine, or all the other wars that don't even make the news, there's one thing in common: the rise of totalitarianism. It is absolutely ubiquitous across the globe. If you have a desire to protect our liberties and freedoms—gender, sexual preference, the environment and everything that we have—then you'd better be able to defend it. If you can't defend it in the most exact form, then you can't defend it at all.

Let's just go through a couple of things in this process, because I understand the role of intermittent power. It's not renewable; it's intermittent. One of the problems you have with intermittent power, just on a technical level, is what they call sawtooth power. It works at around 50 hertz. All power has to work at 50 hertz, otherwise power just doesn't work. It's just physics. So you have intermittent power. Basically it's generating direct power. It has to be converted to alternating power. You can't have too much of it. Industry won't work with it.

If you ask, 'How long does it take to build a nuclear reactor?' I will tell you a country that built one in six years: Australia. Australia built one in six years. It's called the OPAL reactor. It took us six years to do it. Let's dispense with the idea that it is going to take 20 years. Of the 12- to 15-year build put to date, about six years of that is paperwork before they start moving dirt. Once they start moving dirt, it's about six to eight years and they've got it built. Isn't that what we should be doing, hand in glove with this? We've got to get out of this naivety that we are smarter than everywhere else in the world. We're not. And we've also got to take the leap. For goodness sake, if Greta Thunberg can support nuclear energy then I don't think it's a huge leap for us to. It stands to reason.

If AUKUS is to work and we are looking decades ahead—and, by gosh, I want it to work—we also have to have a look at what is happening in the world right now. Right now, as we speak, there is a debate going on in the United States as to the prospect of where they are heading. Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are having a debate. You have two alternative foreign policies that will be part of that. That will change in minutiae, we believe, how Australia's works, and I hope that is the case. But you can see that there is variance. There is fluidity. It is a discussion. There are discussions in the United Sates about AUKUS—overwhelmingly in support of us but not entirely.

Our biggest threat is if this thing falls over, because where do we go next? What's the next step? Do we honestly believe that, when Wang Yi is going to Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, the Solomons, Vanuatu, Fiji, and having discussions with the Cook Islands—do we just think this is by chance? These are tactics against Australia—it always is. It's encirclement. You don't have to invade Australia; you just have to cut it off. If you cut it off, you win. We have to take conditions. Are we formidable enough to say, 'That would be a dangerous move for you to do that'?

We have six Collins class submarines. Sometimes we can't get one in the water. We have three warships, and calling them warships is—it's looking after the explanation. We have eight frigates. We have a defence force which is actually getting smaller, not bigger. Cutting-edge technology is important, but it's not made here. If things turn against us, we're in a world of strife. We have one big thing in our pocket, that we have a military agreement with the United States of America. Let's go into that before I close. Your belief is that the good mums and dads of Tennessee, South Dakota, Carolina, New York and Los Angeles will happily send their family members over to be killed on behalf of Australia? What you're saying is that they'll happily do that. I'm telling you that the mums and dads there are just like the mums and dads here. They might have other ideas about that. They might have a big say in the future about how they feel about that. They might say, 'I think we're just going to concentrate on the United States for a while.' If that's the case, those who wish to do us harm—and they exist. Remember, we've had military lasers put on our planes from Chinese ships in our exclusive economic zone. We've had flares put out in front of a Seahawk helicopter. We've had foil in front of a P-3 Orion plane. We've had spies in this parliament. We've had it; we've got it.

This AUKUS agreement is fundamentally important. I'm so glad that we have a bipartisan approach to it. I call to the Australian people and to all to just understand history. Don't understand my politics, disregard me completely and dislike me as much as you like, but like a history book. Really have a good read of that and, as you have a read of that, think of all the things that you cherish about Australia and the particular causes you want to pursue and want to sustain. The only way you will sustain that is if you have a formidable capacity to defend your nation. We have a formidable gap to fill before we'll have the capacity to do that, and AUKUS is fundamental in that process.

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