Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Joyce, the member for New England, is who I was referring to. If that assists, I will absolutely do that. This week has seen Mr Joyce's return. The first—the original—was bad. What will the sequel bring? Today's MPI debate is about the new-and-old Deputy Prime Minister's position on the target of net zero by 2050.

The Prime Minister has been experimenting with his climate rhetoric this year. I say 'experimenting' because nobody knows quite what the Prime Minister means. The Prime Minister of Britain and the Liberal backbench certainly think that he means one thing; the National Party believes another. Surely ordinary Australian people, who overwhelmingly demand a sensible approach on climate, emissions, jobs and energy, have no chance at all of understanding what on earth it is that the Prime Minister is talking about. When the Prime Minister says it is his preference to get to net zero by 2050, what on earth does he mean? When he says 'new energy economy', what are the real-world policy consequences for people? The Prime Minister is so tied up in his own spin that nobody knows what he means, least of all himself. But the former and future leader of the National Party has had some interesting observations about a net zero emissions target. Last month he published an opinion piece in the Northern Daily Leader, outlining his thoughts—the thought leader of the National Party. Given that the Prime Minister will have to sit down and negotiate a fresh iteration of the secret coalition agreement, it's worth some close examination.

The title of this opinion piece? 'Climate socialism will trump private rights'. Unfortunately, it takes about half of the op-ed to get to climate change. Firstly we get what passes for amateur philosophy from the member for New England. He says:

The cornerstone of a modern franchise of freedom relies on the state to protect private ownership. Without private ownership you are merely an article of the state … The disenfranchisement of freedom relies on the state imposing on your ability to act independently.

It's got the kind of overheated quality of someone trying to prove that they'd done that week's reading. Then he goes on to say:

COVID itself has been brilliant at the disenfranchisement of personal freedoms. You can't travel from one place of no disease to another of no disease because of the dictates of the state.

What on earth does this bloke mean? What on earth does he mean? It's the kind of febrile stuff that's out there in those funny old chat rooms—the ultra Right chatrooms. Then he goes on to say:

The conservative side of politics has to be the champion of private ownership … The power of the state deadens the dynamics of the individual which paradoxically makes the nation weaker than it would be if it was freer.

What on earth is this rubbish from this bloke? This is what passes for ideology for the bloke who wants to be the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.

Remember the Weatherboard and Iron podcast from Mr Joyce and Senator Canavan? You'd all be on it! We never know which one's weatherboard and which one's iron. We do know that this podcast, even for young right wingers, the kinds of characters who sit in their basements listening to this stuff—even for them it puts the bored into weatherboard. I was informed by my staff that Weatherboard and Iron is 40 minutes of this kind of rubbish.

Finally, he begins to ramp up on a point:

The discussions about the proposed 2050 zero emissions target will impose on the individual the next raft of caveats. Once again, it will stand next to the moralistic framed existential crisis of global warming … This impossible journey to zero emissions can only be embarked on with a whole new raft of impositions on private assets.

Really! Not even Senator Rennick understand what that is all about. It must be a surprise to the National Farmers Federation, who've endorsed a net-zero-by-2050 target. It would have to be a surprise to Meat & Livestock Australia, who have planned to achieve net zero by the end of the decade. It goes on:

Climate socialism will trump private rights long before it would or could have any effect on the mercury.

This is like some sort of free-form hallucinogenic trip that Mr Joyce is unfolding here. He says:

The state will look to you for thanks that you can now go to Anzac Day or church.

Net zero emissions, according to Mr Joyce, are going to take Anzac Day away. How one earth can the Prime Minister come to agreement with a man who thinks that net zero emissions are the equivalent of the villain from Braveheart? How can the Prime Minister hammer out a deal with a man who thinks net zero emissions are going to steal Christmas?

Mr Joyce doesn't represent farmers. He doesn't fight for country communities. He only stands up for one person: Mr Joyce will only ever stand up for Mr Joyce. I find the Deputy Prime Minister's rhetoric particularly unusual, considering his track record as agriculture minister. He's very exercised about property rights when he's in the local paper, but he's much more flexible about property rights when it comes to the National Party's role in the Murray-Darling Basin. When Four Corners exposed that billions of litres of water had been stolen from the Bowen-Darling, the then Minister for Agriculture, who's responsible for this scheme, was entirely unconcerned. He said, 'It's an issue overwhelmingly for New South Wales'—an echo of the Prime Minister's approach to vaccine delivery or quarantine. But, to an audience of irrigators that night, he told the truth. He said:

We have taken water, put it back into agriculture, so we could look after you and make sure we don't have the greenies running the show.

Well, it wasn't put back into agriculture; it was put back into mates of the National Party. Some bits of agriculture got the benefit of that very loose approach to water allocations.

Is it any surprise that it barely took a week since his return for the National Party to start undermining the agreement that shares our nation's rivers?

Their surprise amendments in the Senate bring the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan to the brink of destruction, pitting farmer against farmer and state against state. It's a self-indulgent display from a self-indulgent party led by a self-indulgent man. His paranoid vision—a personal freedom—comes at great cost to country Australians, to Australian agriculture and, ultimately, to all of us.