‘Going down the path of insanity’: Barnaby Joyce calls out Labor’s energy policies

I saw you in one of the booths in Albury.Your boat held up in Albury but really you won in the regional regional.You won outside the city centre, the main centre of Albury, Griffith, Narrandera, Denny, Hay, places like that.

You're across it.Go on.go well.

I'm not a country girl.I'm not going to try and pretend that.

But I do love it.You're going very well.

I do love it.I saw you on one of the booths in Albury, though.You kind of get this rock star reception, not just from the One Nation people that they're handing out.But what were people telling you over the last couple of weeks?What did they really want you to do in Canberra?

The same thing.I mean, if you talk to a small business, they say, this power bill's killing me.Is that absolutely killing me?

But Barnaby, if you build a coal -fired power station tomorrow, if you got rid of the client change department, that's not going to change their bills straight away.You're now in a position in One Nation where you need to start coming up with the answers.

But that is the answer.

But you've sailed on grievance for a while.

But that is the answer.

You need to be part of the solution.

That is ongoing.That is the answer.You can't just keep going down the path of insanity, thinking you're going to arrive at the town of logic.This idea you're going to run Australia on wind towers and solar panels.You can put whatever you like on the roof.Don't care.

Knock yourself out.But this idea that you're going to cover the fields with solar panels, wind towers, secret agreements, capacity investment schemes, and all of a sudden the power bill that's been going through the roof is going to start going down is insane.So you have to make the decision somewhere to go back to what worked, So we're going to do that.And even saying that, there'll be a lot of people who'll be hurting them in their stomach just from me saying that.Sorry, that's the truth.And, you know, on the way through, we have got so many other things that we have to streamline.

We have to get greater access to our oil to start extracting it.Can you have an oil well tomorrow?Of course you can't.Can you build an oil refinery tomorrow?Of course you can't.Can you start?

Absolutely.You've got to.And what stops us extracting oil from the Great Australian Bight?Environmental legislation.What stops us?exploring in the Gulf of Canterra?

Environmental legislation.What are people complaining about?Fuel security.And you say, well, you can't have both.So we're going down the path of reality.This is the path that is taking us away from being the Singapore of It multiplied so many times because we have the resources.

Because we're going to give the power back to Australia and we're going to start focusing on Australians first.

Why do you think you would appeal to voters in Western Sydney?

Because I was talking to them last night and having a meeting.

You were in Western Sydney last night?

No, I was at a conference.I was at a budget discussion here with people from Western Sydney.And then I was on the phone talking to people.

You hate Sky, yeah.

You're never here.

You hate the telly.

Yeah, that's right.And then also talking to people who were potential candidates from Western Sydney.And they're the same, you know, first generation, second generation Australians.The one thing about them is they're I can say they know where that came from, they know it doesn't work, they're very mindful of it and I think you'll find they're a lot more attracted to One Nation policies than people expected because on the social fabric Sydney does not want Sydney, more than anywhere else, is aware that if you pull 400 ,000 people in a year into Australia, they don't go around Australia, they don't start living in Alice Springs, I can assure you of that.You know where a lot of them want to live?Sydney.

You know who can't afford a house?People in Sydney.You know where we're getting more and more homeless people, which have so many other social issues, but it's a sign.It's a sign of what's going on, living under bridges, Australians.And, you know, this is...

This is untenable.And people, even right now, basically, you know, talking to a guy just then from Western Sydney, you know, obviously first generation Australians, they like to talk.They said, yeah, and he was listening to me on, like, what I've been saying goes, you're dead right.We hate it.You just keep pouring these people into our suburbs.There's nothing wrong with them as human beings.

It's just that we get forced out.

The Nats did OK.Matt Canavan did OK.The Liberals are on 12%.This is a party that was founded in Albury in 1944.

At the Mates building, yeah.People think we didn't know that.

But still combined, they were half of One Nation's vote in Albury.Do you...Look, I asked Angus Taylor this and I don't think he had a very good answer on Saturday night, but we'll give him some time.Is it now time for the Liberals to start talking to you?I'm looking at the Victorian election coming up pretty quickly.The Liberal Party have gone and won 35 seats.

There's a lot of areas in that state election that are similar to Farrah.

OK.

Should you be talking to the Liberals if you want to knock off a Labor government there in the state?

First thing I'd say, Laura, is the Libs have got to change their attitude.This idea of the one nation, it's so conceited.One nation is splitting our vote.Mate, you've got 12%.You split ours, we didn't split yours.And so you don't own votes, you earn votes.

The Australian people will make a decision who they vote for.Now we are obviously a conservative party.We're more conservative than they are, self -evidently.So we're happy to discuss supply and confidence.So if they need supply and confidence, and for your listeners, and unless you've got supply you can't get a budget through, unless you've got confidence then any day your government can fall because if voted no confidence.But it'll be on policy structure and policy delivery.

If you don't deliver us policy you'll have that removed.If you play some silly game you're going to have that removed.We know, we've been around for a while actually, we know how to deal with this.

Well everyone thinks you're new and you capitalise on that because you're the new kids on the block against the establishment parties.

But what we can also say is if we end up with themajority of seats, same deal.Only goes our way.

So what do you mean by that?

We don't want...

So you want to call the shots?

Yeah, you bet.If we've got the majority of the votes, you bet we want to call the shots.

But that's what the deal is for supply and confidence.

It's a quid pro quo, isn't it?We want it off them.

Yeah.

So if they get up...

Do you think they're willing to talk to you about that?

They have no option.

Well, not yet.Are you getting ahead of yourself, Barnaby?

No.Are they?

No, but are you getting ahead of yourself before the next election?A lot can happen.

Yeah, of course.Hang on, let me deal with that.Please do.Okay, you've had a poll after poll after poll.You said getting ahead of yourself, which says you presume something.We've had multiple polls.

They're all corroborating one another.You would agree with that?I would.We've had the South Australian elections, which we did better than we expected.You'd agree with that?We've just had a vote in Farrah, which you've said yourself, our vote was better than the combined Liberal Party and National Party vote.

You'd agree with that?So I'm not getting ahead of myself.I'm dealing with the facts that are before me, before, not ahead, before me.And I'm saying that if you get to a position where One Nation...Because people make the decisions, not us.You see that in England with Farage.

People make the decisions, not us.And if they give us the great honour of having the majority vote, we have to look at that potential because it's seen in the polls that you have.But if you...if that was the case, then just as we say, we'll offer you supply and confidence and not want the ministry.So you've got all the presence to hand out to your friends.They can all be called honourable and have a wonderful time and good luck to them and God bless them on the premise of policy.But if it was changed around, we want the same deal.

You have been around in politics for decades.You know that things come in swings and roundabouts.We know the history of One Nation and Highwise and they've had low lows indeed.Is there party discipline?More party discipline this time around?What are you saying to the team behind the scenes?

Are you saying we've just got to be consistent and for people not to get ahead of themselves?Because there's big personalities in politics.

What is different this time?I think you've got to be optimistic and you've got to have collegiality.I think within One Nation there is a collegiality.We do discuss things.We have umpteen meetings.There's respect between people.

I don't think anybody believes that they're superior.Obviously if it comes to a decision on the day...Pauline will make it because she's the leader and you need a leader.But I'll be frank, it's a lot better collegiality than I saw, unfortunately, at the last iteration of my involvement with the National Party.It was completely partisan, sectorialised, balkanised, there was friction, there was no communication and it was not good.

OK.Well, we'll speak soon.

I look forward to it.Thank you very much.Congratulations.

I appreciate you coming on.

Thank you, Laura.

See you soon.