‘This is insane': Former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce unloads on renewable energy policies in fiery Sky News interview

Sky News AU

5 days ago

Barnaby Joyce has unloaded on Australia's 'insane' renewable energy policies during a fiery interview with Sky News host Laura Jayes.
Mr Joyce has announced plans to introduce a private members' bill to repeal climate reduction targets, and speaking to Jayes on Wednesday, the former Nationals leader said renewable energy policies were putting the nation in 'economic peril' with a 'complete wipeout of manufacturing'.
"Unless we've got a strong economic base, we can't defend our nation,' he said.
'Right now, there are pensioners being put out of their houses to live in their cars because they can't afford their power bill. We've got farms being overrun by solar panels, overrun by wind tower transmission lines.
'It's all attached to net zero. We wouldn't have transmission lines and the wind towers, and the solar panels if we didn't have net zero. So get rid of net zero and we don't have to contend with these swindles, that are making billionaires, multiple billionaires, helping overseas companies from China, from Singapore, and at the expense of the Australian people. This is insane.'
Mr Joyce said he believed that if the net zero and renewable energy targets are abolished, the renewable energy push would disappear and Australia could return to a reliance on cheap coal-fired power.
Jayes hit back at the suggestion, contending the Coalition would not be able to return to government if the Liberals cannot win seats in metropolitan areas due to the Nationals' refusal to embrace action on climate change.
The former Nationals leader hit out at the suggestion his party should primarily be concerned with the Coalition regaining metropolitan seats.
'My gosh, use that attitude. We won't even have those seats in the country for much longer either,' he said.
'What you've got to understand is that our role when we come down to Canberra is to represent the people who send us there. And actually, that is your electorate.
'Now, we are being torn apart by transmission lines, solar panels… communities torn - not torn down the middle - torn 10 per cent to 90 per cent; 90 per cent who hate it, 10 per cent who're probably making a little bit of money out of it.'
Jayes again pressed Mr Joyce on what his political play he was trying to achieve.
'I'm trying to understand what the realistic outcome of this is, do you think all these transmission lines don't go ahead, we have no renewable power and we go back to coal? Is that really what it is?' she asked.
The former Nationals leader pulled up the Sky News host for using the term 'renewables' to describe wind and solar.
'First of all, it's not renewable. It's intermittent. That's an nomenclature that we should use. Wind farms? They're not farms. They're intermittent power precincts and it's intermittent power,' he said.
'So the head of the serpent on this is net zero.... (and) what's the point of us doing this if the rest of the majority of the world, majority of economies of the world, are not doing it?"
Pressed again on what he thought Australia's energy mix should be, the Nationals MP said there should be more baseload power, more coal-fired power stations, and as well as nuclear power, before unleashing on the impact of renewable energy.
'As Bowen himself says, you've got about 42 per cent intermittence. If you talk to electrical engineers, they say it really becomes unviable, starts falling off its perch after about 30 per cent intermittence,' he said.
'So you already do have intermittence. And what I'm saying is, if you go around this crazy idea that you're going to have net zero, we might as well turn off the lights and live in a cave.
'It's not going to work, and this idea of 82 per cent intermittence by 2030, this is insane. You've had programmes out… it's said what, seven per cent of Victoria's got to be covered in solar panels'.
Jayes asked the former Nationals leader if there should be any renewables or intermittent power in the energy grid, to which Mr Joyce said he thought enough damage had been done.
'The more intimate power we are getting, the higher your power bills are going. How high do you want your power to go? How unreliable do you need your economy to be? How much do you want to shell out and deindustrialise our nation? I would say you've done enough of that,' he said.
Mr Joyce also asked why intermittent power needed to be underwritten by 'secret capacity investment schemes' that were not included in the budget.
Asked how much these capacity schemes cost taxpayers, the Nationals MP hit out at the fourth estate for failing to hold the government to account on the issue.
'That's your job, Laura. Get Mr Bowen up here and ask him to tell you how much the Capacity Investing Schemes are for,' he said, to which Jayes pointed out the Energy Minister refused to come on her show.
Asked if he accepted the energy system was a 'complete mess', Mr Joyce said it was because 'we've stuffed it up'.
'We've absolutely butchered it. And you've butchering it by going down the intermittent power process,' he said.
'You used to have the cheapest power in the world with those evil coal-fired power stations… really cheap, reliable power.
'Now you've got really unreliable, hellishly expensive power, and it's on the premise of you trying to achieve this ludicrous idea that Australia and the minority of the globe can somehow change droughts, change cyclones, reduce the extinction of species because Australia is going to change the temperature of the weather. It is insane.'
Asked if he worried about emissions at all, the Nationals MP said he worried about pollution.
'This is this sort of faux virtue that you believe... do you honestly believe in the minority of the economy of the globe, that we are actually going to change the weather? That's insane. That is certifiably insane,' he said.