David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources and Minister for Resources and Northern Australia. Will the Deputy Prime Minister advise the House why the government's National Energy Guarantee is crucial to the success of hardworking Australians in the agriculture sector, including those in my electorate of Maranoa? Is he aware of any alternative approaches?

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

It's great to have all their attention for once. I'd like to thank the member for Maranoa for his question, and he understands full well how important energy prices are and how important it is to keep blue-collar workers in a job, especially in the meat-processing industry, especially in the abattoirs. There are so many abattoirs in his electorate, like John Dee at Warwick and Western Meat Exporters at Charleville. I remember actually getting the deal through for Western Meat Exporters in Charleville when I worked for QIDC. It was a big deal then—$8 million. It now employs hundreds of people. That was a great outcome for Charleville.

For Hall egg farms at Millmerran and all the irrigators in the Darling Downs and out at St George, electricity prices are terribly important. We're now seeing, in places such as St George, that they're going from electricity back to diesel. Why are they doing that? They're doing that because power prices under the Queensland Labor government are hopeless. What's happened is Queensland now has the dearest power prices in Australia, and that is a remarkable effort for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, because she had to get around South Australia to get the dearest power prices, and South Australia's were the best in the Western world!

So what we have to do in our policy is to make sure we get clear transparency so that people can change between accounts. We're making sure that the gas prices, at Wallumbilla, are down, and now the spot price is down between $7 and $8. Wallumbilla is also in the member's electorate. At one point in time Darren Lockyer played there. We're also making sure that we keep the coal fire burning, because, if we don't keep that coal fire burning, you're not going to have any blue-collar workers.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

They're laughing because they don't believe in blue-collar workers anymore. They don't. They believe that blue-collar workers are now politically incorrect and they're doing everything in their power to turn themselves into a party that represents the inner suburbs and other sections of the workforce but no longer blue-collar workers. There's very little experience in blue-collar work on that side of the chamber. Very few of them have ever actually been labourers. There are very few labourers in the Labor Party. They've given up on labourers in the Labor Party.

They've also given up on making sure that we look after the dignity of the people in the weatherboard and iron, in towns such as Augathella, Eulo, Eromanga, Birdsville, Goondiwindi, Kingaroy—that we look after these people who are doing it tough on the peripheries of society. We make sure that they have the dignity of affordable power in their house so they can keep themselves cool in summer and warm in winter and we make sure that we don't create second-class citizens of a section of Australian society. This is something that I know, in the National Party and in the coalition, we hold closest to our heart. Every time we look at policy, we are saying: 'How does this affect those at the margins of society? How do we make sure there's dignity in these people's lives?' We are not there for those who have more interest— (Time expired)