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

Our grandparents lived in a very fractious time, a very dangerous time. We, on the balance of things, have lived in a pretty good time. But, unfortunately, it's changing again. The world is changing, and our children are going to live in a vastly more dangerous world than we did. With the rise of a totalitarian, militaristic China, a rogue state in North Korea, an architect of third-party terrorism in Iran and Russia actually invading another nation, the world is changing. So our priority for this nation is to make it as strong as possible as quickly as possible and as powerful as possible as quickly as possible.

Do multinational companies swindling the taxpayer with government subsidisation of construction of intermittent wind factories, intermittent solar factories and a cobweb of transmission lines give us any prospect of competing against baseload coal-fired, nuclear-fired China? Do we have the capacity in the future to defend our families and defend this nation as we have done in the past? Our job in making this nation as powerful as possible as quickly as possible relies so much on having affordable and reliable power as the food stock of virtually every other sector of the economy. If we do not have a broad base strong economy we do not give ourselves the best chance.