SABRA LANE: Next week marks a year since Barnaby Joyce took over the leadership of the National Party and became the Deputy Prime Minister.
The Nationals under his leadership picked up one Lower House seat at the election last year, while the Liberals lost 14.
At this week's Coalition party room meeting he delivered what some say was a "spray", reminding MPs to not dwell on fringe issues like same-sex marriage.
Barnaby Joyce joins us now.
Deputy Prime Minister, welcome to AM.
BARNABY JOYCE: Thanks, Sabra, for giving me a chance to have another spray. (Laughs)
SABRA LANE: (Laughs) Well, just on that, you appeared to revel in what, you know, the Prime Minister's tongue-lashing of Bill Shorten yesterday...
BARNABY JOYCE: Absolutely.
SABRA LANE: But isn't that the kind of behaviour that voters really hate?
BARNABY JOYCE: No, it's not. No, it's not because we had to put up with Mr Shorten coming out - and he knows what he's doing. He's creating this class warfare, Sabra, calling Mr Turnbull 'Mr Harbourside Mansion'.
And as I've said before: 'Look, if I'm going to have a choice between someone running the country with the arse out of their pants, who's never made a buck, or someone who's actually made a dollar, got ahead… Remember, Mr Turnbull owns a nice stack on the harbour because he's worked very hard and been successful. And that's what we want in this nation. We should celebrate success.
Now, the thing about Mr Shorten is, he's such a hypocrite because we all know he spends his whole life swanning it with, you know, Solly Lew and with Richard Pratt and flying around in their jets.
And good luck and God bless him. But don't go to the dispatch box, Mr Shorten, and start this confected outrage of, you know, you and the working man as if you're Clark from the coal mine in Wales. You're not.
I mean, have a good look at yourself. It looks like... You might be the leader of the Labor Party, but it looks like you've never done a day's labour in your life.
SABRA LANE: But the gloves are off. It's all personal now. And the personal politics is what really turns off voters and it might explain why the Coalition is sitting on a primary vote of 35 per cent?
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, we're not going to have Mr Shorten going out there, bucketing on us and just keep on taking it on the chin every day.
You know, if that's where Mr Shorten wants to go, well, we're ready, willing and able to reply because Mr Shorten is completely and utterly incompetent. He couldn't run a pie shop. And the thought of him running the country fills me with dread.
SABRA LANE: The Government in the past week has performed a number of backflips: dumping the forced land acquisitions in Queensland, softening up some of the cuts on families, dumping the gold pass for retired MPs.
And this morning the Fin's (Financial Review) reporting that the Government's backing down on raising the pension age to 70. First of all, is that point right? And why are you doing all of this stuff?
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, you've just said that what the public like is for us to negotiate - and we do that. We've shown in the last week how we listen to the issues that are out there in the public. We're not arrogant.
A classic one is central Queensland. When the cattle farmers, when I went up and saw them the other day, clearly expressed their concerns and they were completely logical, we went down with the Defence Minister and the Prime Minister and myself. We changed the decision so that no-one would be forced of their land, that you couldn't have your property bought against your wishes.
That's the sign of a Government that's listening. That's the sign of a Government that's reacting. And if you talk about these other negotiations that are happening and have happened with the Senate: that's what you do.
SABRA LANE: And the pension age?
BARNABY JOYCE: That's... if... Look, we have our policy, but we are negotiating with the Senate, as we always do.
And why do we do all of this? This is really important. Why would we be changing the pension at all? Well, because the Labor Party and the independents and the Greens left us hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.
And we've got to somehow turn this around so we don't leave for our kids and our grandkids a debt that will completely change their standard of living because they won't be able to afford public health, they won't be able to...
SABRA LANE: But debt's going to break through $500 billion this year and that's...
BARNABY JOYCE: And we are... We are changing the trajectory that was left to us by Labor. Remember, when we gave the books...
SABRA LANE: It's still heading in the wrong direction.
BARNABY JOYCE: When we gave the books to the Labor Party after Howard and Vail, the world owed us hundreds of billions of dollars. When we got them back off Rudd and Gillard - and Shorten and Bowen - we owed the world hundreds of billions of dollars. And they'd locked us into every crazy contract from late-night TV they could possibly have bought.
And we're trying to turn the show around. And that's what forces us to make decisions which, I understand, people have some concerns about, because we're forced to do it because we've got to try and turn around the mess that's left by Labor. The last thing this nation needs is Labor back.
SABRA LANE: On energy, the Prime Minister and the Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg, want the bans on coal seam gas mining addressed in particular states. The Nats are big opponents to the sector in many states.
In Victoria, farmers want it banned. They want the prohibitions in place to remain.
Do you want to see those bans lifted?
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, I've been constant on this since about 2011, the Senate report. It works like this: Don't go on primary agricultural land, because it's a higher-value asset. So stay away from prime-ag land. There's not that much of it in the world and we're losing the little bits we've got.
Don't destroy aquifers because they're common property. You can't go find coal seam gas in Sydney Harbour, because it's owned by the people of Sydney.
But if you're not on prime-ag land and you're not destroying an aquifer, here's the big one - you must make sure a fair return goes back to the landholder. And I believe that that is a percentage return from the gross earned at the wellhead.
And that means that farmers have a huge financial benefit if they are basically in partnership with the resources that come off their place.
Now, people say, "Oh, well, they don't own the resources."
Well, that historically is incorrect, because hydrocarbonous (sic) material - coal, oil, gas - in many instances was vested with the landholder. It was divested from the landholder without payment by a range of acts over the last 100 years.
So if you cut a good deal with the farmers, then I think - as long as you're not destroying aquifers and you're not destroying prime-ag land - then I think you can find a happy medium in this debate.
Because everybody wants to make a buck. Talk to them where they listen most and that's through their wallet.
SABRA LANE: Yeah, but gas is also talked about as the transition fuel to get Australia away from coal to renewables; that there is a big need to tap gas.
BARNABY JOYCE: That's a good conversation to have with the South Australians, because they're running a complete and utter stuff at the moment.
SABRA LANE: Well, Australia has large reserves of gas that can only be tapped by coal seam gas projects. And the Government wants that done now. How are you going to get farmers on-side in a hurry?
BARNABY JOYCE: Easy. Easy. If I go onto someone's land and say, look - first of all, I'm not forcing it on them. "This is not prime-ag land, that section; we're not destroying an aquifer; we've done the research. Now, this is the return you're going to get. If you..."
SABRA LANE: A bigger cut?
BARNABY JOYCE: Yeah. You're going to get a bigger cut, like they do in other countries.
And then that farmer is going to be a lot more inclined to talk to you, because he can see basically an annuity structure coming into his place which assists the value of his place, which assists him to have a higher standard of living, which allows more money to come back through the farm gate, which allows the people in his town, his regional town, to get more of that money for their hardware stores, into their shops, into their coffee shops; more money going around the district.
That's the sort of negotiation we have to have. And I've said that to the farmers and I've said it to the mining companies.
But if you think you're just going to waltz onto someone's place against their wishes...
SABRA LANE: OK. You've made that point.
BARNABY JOYCE: ...do whatever you like and pay them nothing for it: well, guess what? You're going to have a blue.
SABRA LANE: A report in The Australian today says that there were clear signs of a potential outbreak of white spot disease in prawns in August last year. This disease could wipe out our prawn industry locally. Why didn't you act until December?
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, hang on. First of all, although we had indications of white spot and although there was a white spot outbreak, there was no indication as to where it came from.
As soon - the day, Sabra - the day I found out that we had white spot in retail shops, that day, I left where I was. I was at Coolum. I flew straight back down to Canberra. By two o'clock I was having meetings with the department. The next day we'd suspended importation of green prawns. So I don't think you could work any faster than that.
SABRA LANE: But there were indications in August?
BARNABY JOYCE: The indications… When people talk about the indications, we've got to make sure that we're talking about- We've had white spot before in this country, Sabra. We had it up in Darwin and we got rid of it.
Now, we are getting on top of this issue. We are making sure that the properties are in quarantine. We're chlorinating the properties. We're narrowing this down.
I believe that we'll be able to get rid of this, just like we had success with Panama Race 4, with the bananas, up in Queensland.
Running the department is a many and varied thing. You are always on the balls of your toes. That's why I love agriculture and water resources, because these problems will always come up. You manage them, and we're managing this one.
I've suspended the trade - or the secretary of the department's suspended its trade. We're going through the process of how this happened.
Once we have sort of definitive information about how it happened, then I can act on that. And that means if, in some instances, that the trade will stay suspended until all or part for as long as it takes to try and sort this out.
SABRA LANE: One sentence: How do you think people in the bush will react to Ahmed Fahour, the Australia Post CEO, getting $5.6 million?
BARNABY JOYCE: Not very well.
SABRA LANE: Deputy Prime Minister, that's all we've got time for. Thanks for your time this morning.
BARNABY JOYCE: Good on you, Sabra.
Recent policy changes show the Government is responding to public concerns: Barnaby Joyce
Sabra Lane reported this story on Thursday, February 9, 2017 08:07:05
Related Links
ABC takes no responsibility for the sites these links take you to.
- Concerns after white spot found in Moreton Bay's wild prawns
- Defence drops plans for compulsory acquisition of Queensland farmland for training area
Images
- Click an image to enlarge
