Senator Joyce: It seems absolutely absurd; in fact it seems absolutely duplicitous, that the last couple of days we’ve had the Prime Minster of Australia going completely back on her word. I don’t know what else you would call it, but I know that the word liar would be struck from the record.

But someone who conscientiously went out and engaged with the voters and attracted their vote on a promise that they would not introduce a carbon tax and now is doing precisely that has completely sullied the reputation of the prime ministerial office. This is the office of Curtin, Chifley, Menzies, so many people who have done such great things for Australia, but I don’t know in the history of this nation where someone has gone out and completely and utterly disregarded the engagement and the promise they made to the Australian people.

The National Party will be at the forefront of this fight. We will not be sucked in to stupid banal statements where apparently you’re going to destroy all the industry and then create Green jobs. We do not believe for one moment that the so called Green jobs, whatever they are- footpaths around duck ponds or the construction of winds chimes- is going to replace the fact that Blue Scope Steel says they will leave our nation. That will put immense stresses on the fundamental driver of business .We have to acknowledge in this nation a government that seeks and desires to put up the price of power.

That is, if they are going to remain internationally competitive, stresses have to come on somewhere else and the stresses will be on the price of wages. You either have cheap power of cheap wages. This government has decided that we are going to have dear power, so if they’re going to keep the manufacturing industry open then   they’re going to have to look at wages and this seems incredible and where is Mr Paul Howse now? What happened that that doyen of the truth and the light who stood at the podium Mussolini- like berating the crowds about the evils happening to his people? Now when they are under real stress, when they can really lose their job because of this ludicrous tax, what have we heard from him? Nothing.

This will affect regional areas. This will affect the regional areas and in its insidious nature work its way into every person’s life. If you have a power point in your house, you will have to deal with this tax. Before I’ve said that when the little white light goes on in the fridge it was to remind you that Kevin Rudd was taxing you, well now it’s a little red light on your clock radio to remind you that Julia Gillard is taxing you. This will work its way to every section of people’s lives and the people who can least afford it -the people who do not need any price mechanism at the moment to use less power because they can’t afford the power they’ve got. The people who are going to end up paying for this    and if someone says oh we’ll give them some money back, it just makes no sense. You’re going to take money off them; run a massive bureaucracy and give them back a little bit of their own money. Why don’t we allow them to keep the lot?

It is just going to be a cruel tax and of course the most bizarre thing of all, is that the premise of this tax is that someone has the absolute conceit to think that Australia single-handedly, from a room inside this building can cool the planet. Well if you can cool the planet from this building, let’s organise the rains, or the snow for the ski fields. Let’s start organising a whole range of things to do with our climate. We can’t change the planet from in here. What we are about to embark on if they go down that road is a gesture that will cost people money. A gesture that will do nothing more than make people poorer, that makes the fundamentals of life dearer, and will absolutely drive manufacturing jobs off our shores and out of our nation.

Journalist: The Greens ………inaudible…

 Senator Joyce: Well, we’ve seen the government…. The government of the day had a press conference, and it was the Prime Minister, whether it was Bob or Julia, you can make your mind up, the Deputy Prime Minister, likewise it’s either Bob or Julia, it’s a sort of rotating forum. Behind them stand the Independents, Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor.

Some absurd statement came out of Mr Windsor that  we are not to construe from this presence at a press conference that he is in support ?Well the Press conference was announcing the carbon tax, Tony. What else do we construe from you appearing at a press conference announcing a carbon tax? That you were lost or that   you lost your way returning from the bathroom that you just stumbled across it and decided to be part of it?

How else do we construe this except that we are about to have another chapter of this teeth pulling agony. As you stand at the front of the political church, pondering whether you will or you won’t, whether he does or he doesn’t and it’s obviously quite absurd and the Australian people will call him for it and now we find him sort of weaselling his way in saying we’re going to create green jobs. Where Tony and how?  How many jobs are we going to lose to create it?

But the Greens have gone out and announced it’s going to be on fuel and now they are backing tracking. The Labor party and the Greens are tick- taking on the nation’s policy and it shows what a tenuous and dangerous position our nation has descended into because its not being run predominately buy the Labor party, it  is being run on this signed off agreement we all saw of the Labor party, the Greens and the Independents. The Green/ Labor/ Independents government – the glee Club.

Journalist: The Opposition, the Coalition says it will scrap the tax if it wins the next election, is that possible?

 Senator Joyce: First and foremost battle to stop it; that’s what the Australian people..and I was not surprised in the slightest by the venom that was shown around, I’ve seen it everywhere. The venom that is against this tax goes beyond a person’s position on climate change.  It’s the sense of deceit. They are just furious they’ve been deceived and it’s made it hard for everyone in politics because they say we told you people - you are liars. We told you we could never trust you.

So we will fight with intense vigour to make sure that we stop this .We will not contemplate working with the enemy whilst the battle is raging .That’s what we will be doing to show a complete commitment to say that we are not going to have a part of this in government by having a part of this in opposition. We will remain absolutely focussed in opposing it and we ill do that on behalf on the Australian people. I would suggest quite a few of them would have strong beliefs in global Warming but they are absolutely furious about the deceit that’s been handed to them buy the highest office holder in this land.

Journalist: Barnaby is it a failing of the multi party committee to not have the details fleshed out?

Senator Joyce:  It’s a failure, its part of a deception. We’re getting bits and pieces. We’re told we can’t argue about the price because they haven’t worked it out. What it will do to the price of electricity -we know that it is a pricing mechanism – by reason that it is a pricing mechanism it is there to force the price up. And that is the mechanism to force people to use less. So in plain simple language it’s like this. Because you are poorer you can afford less, because you are poorer you cannot afford to cool your house, in winter you cannot afford to warm your house. Because you’re poorer you cannot afford the fundamentals of life. And you are going to be poorer because of a gesture. Because there is nothing this government can do to cool the planet, so it is merely a gesture to make you poorer. But what I can clearly suggest is that a government that is desperately looking for money has found a moral bulwark to impose of you some sort of moral turpitude by taking money out of your wallet to put into theirs. This government hasn’t worked it our which goes to show you that everything that is behind this is false, it’s flimsy, it’s off the cuff and it’s very, very dangerous.

Journalist: Tony Windsor said this morning that Tony Abbott had told him that everything was on the table when they were negotiating who should from minority government. Do you think Tony Windsor would be lying about something like that?

Senator Joyce: I think that it is absolutely absurd that his literal interpretation, even if that happened, would ever include something that was so fundamentally objectionable and it was the whole reason we bought about a change in leadership by Malcolm Turnbull because he stood by his convictions. That stands to reason, then I suppose that Tony Abbott was suggesting that he should change his name of that we should move the capital to Danglemar or that we are suggesting everyone wear a frock to work. It’s absurd to think that his literal interpretation is anything more than another mechanism by Tony Windsor to get out of the position that he has put himself in and how he has so fundamentally let down the people of the New England. The people of New England today are waking up and saying we cannot believe where Mr Windsor has taken our seat. He has completely deserting the views of the overwhelming majority of the people of his electorate.

Journalist: But he’s saying that he has advocated for renewable energy projects to get underway even before this election outcome.

Senator Joyce: Tony Windsor sent a survey to his electorate - he asked them about their position on Gay Marriage but he forgot to ask them about a position on a carbon tax. This seems an interesting position from Mr Windsor. Like when he says that he believes that the views of his constituents is the primary driver and the motivation for how he acts down here, but he never took into account their position when he decided which government to put in place. It’s a sort of opt in- opt out depending on the day, depending on the weather approach from Mr Windsor.

ENDS