And the time-honoured retort from a National Party politician in that circumstance is of course to note that we’re still here, and that one ought to check the pulse before pronouncing on the corpse.

 

Well, I’m not going to do that. The 2007 Federal election loss was a devastating event for the Federal National Party, not only because it saw us out of Government in every single jurisdiction in Australia, but because it underlined the drift from our Party’s history and traditions that we permitted for a decade or more in the name of unity.

 

It is also a low ebb in terms of our representation, exacerbated by three key features of our electoral performance since the end of the Fraser Government:

1.   the loss of long-term strongholds to independents who in some cases express our traditional Party values better than we have;

2.   the departure of Members to independent status, on at least one occasion because of a feeling that we had betrayed our heritage;

3.   the concession of core seats to the Liberal Party, from who we had become insufficiently distinct or losses of blue collar conservatives who prefer Labor to a mute National or suburban Liberal.

 

In Australia there is a highly powerful political force. It has no name but it is instrumental in the determination of every election result. It has no policies but its desires are analysed and reanalysed and mused over and assumed and purported. It runs no candidates in elections nor does it have a party machine, yet everyone aspires and claims that they represent it. 

 

In fact, this political force is the epicentre of our Nation and it lies at the heart of our system of government. That force has been brought about by the right and obligation of all to vote in elections.

 

In a country where voting is compulsory you do not have to inspire people to get out of bed to vote - they have to or they get fined. The trick is to somehow harness that vote, particularly the swinging voters. The swinging voters are the key to electoral victory.

 

 The challenge for a major political party is to cultivate that centre group so that they swing to your beliefs or swing away from other’s mismanagement and put you and your political associates into Government.

 

In seeking to capture those swinging voters promises are made to win Government and then broken once elected where expedient to do so to stay in Government.

 

Playing only to the centre however has its dangers.   In the desire to be opaque, lukewarm, inoffensive and passionately politically tepid, there are flanks that open up to the left and to the right of the centre. 

 

The Labor Party strategy is very adroit in that their flank is covered by their able lieutenant, the Greens, who orchestrate political pas de deuxs on issues where it is inconceivable that the right could outflank them on the far left. 

 

But when it really counts, that is election time, and on crucial pieces of legislation as seen in the stimulus package and alcopops tax, the Greens can be completely relied on to support the Labor Party. Good luck to the left in that they have a very clever political formula – this formula helped the Labor Party get 43% of the vote and win an election.

 

The conservative side of politics has a dilemma in that it looks for one political product to sell at times to two groups of people with, at times, two different social and economic tastes. Even the terminology, conservatives that are liberal, could be deemed to be politically schizophrenic. The conservative side of politics, like the left, has a diversity of viewpoints and even tensions.

 

There is a critical thread I’d like to draw between these two themes: of the tendency for the philosophy of political movements to adapt rapidly to the short-term environment; and the current position of the National Party at the Commonwealth level.

 

Our electoral standing is at root a consequence of the Party’s decision to blend in, chameleon-like, with the approach of its Coalition partner. Many might of course note that this did mean participation in the full eleven-plus years of Government, and that there was significant influence brought to bear at the Cabinet level, but now we find ourselves at the end of that sequence, it’s an inevitable conclusion that it was at a substantial long-run cost.

 

Let’s look at a current issue that clearly shines a spotlight on this problem. I believe there is a paradox that the conservatives can represent a voter who in the same breath could be skeptical without ruling out the role of the Government being responsible for bringing about moral good, so coherently believes in small tax and small government, yet also believes in a social program tax, such as the emissions trading scheme to haunt us all with its battalions of bureaucratic tin gods on the quest for Australia to cool the planet.

 

While conservative voters will care for the environment, they may divide on how to best achieve that outcome. Many conservatives question whether an ETS, a tax, should be placed on businesses regardless of whether they are profitable or not, and regardless of whether the proposition put forward has any efficacy on what it wishes to achieve, global cooling.

 

A carbon reduction scheme which for all intents and purposes will not reduce carbon as far as the globe is concerned so will have nil effect, except for those who profit from the bureaucracy and those who punt the paper around the market place making sizable commissions on the way through. 

 

 

To the rest of Australia this is a political gesture to make you feel good, which you undoubtedly will as long as you don’t have to pay the price. It is not surprising that when you ask people to put their own job on the line, for the warm inner glow of environmental world peace, their views on the emission trading scheme change quite markedly. 

 

How do we deal with divergent views within the community? If in the end the left have two viewpoints and the right only have one. The result is pretty much as you see around our nation. The left win everywhere except Western Australia, where they were beaten by the fact that there were two political views against two political views. 

 

There is very limited latitude within the Australian political system on what political members say and how they vote. 

 

The left has dealt with it in some fashion by having a moderate view displayed by the Labor Party and a more strident view displayed by the Greens. The National Party gives the conservative side the capacity to display a variance of views that reflect the actual variance within the community. This avoids the disenfranchising of the political voice of sections of the community bringing a cynicism towards politics and politicians.

 

The obsession of the major parties to capture the centre ground has meant that the only way certain groups that never have the numbers in the party room will get heard is with their own distinct political party or to create highly regulated and highly disciplined factions. 

 

I think the former is a more honest transparent approach than the latter and so does the public with the growth of Greens at the expense of the Labor Left. This also is the reason the National Party came into existence in 1913 and for this reason it is as important today as it has ever been.

 

It is interesting that the anonymous valiant spirit, apparently well placed within the Liberal Party, who in The Australian on the 4th May suggested a purge of dead wood from the Liberal Party and the National Party. He suggested it as an urban based aspirant within the conservative side of politics who wants to “fix things up” through the purview of his own life in the leafy suburbs of what I would suggest are the more affluent parts of the capital cities. They suggest over a cup of coffee that when you do stand up for regional issues, read don’t agree with them, you are divisive.

 

May I suggest that when it is your electorate, and you don’t stand up for them, you are weak. 

 

Ultimately this “please don’t be difficult” approach really should be translated as “you must remember it is politically correct that my views are more worthy than yours because I say so”. It is roma lacuta causa finita and by the way I live in Rome. 

 

The current electoral redistribution show that many think

that regional areas are overrepresented and should lose seats. This is metropolitan Australia reinforcing the power of metropolitan Australia. It is here that the National Party must play a vital role in reminding us that Australia is more than a series of metropolitan capitals.

 

Now we have to look at the interplay between the financial consequences of current Labor mismanagement and the role of governance in our nation and the capacity to deliver a regional voice.

 

More and more the affairs of our Nation are run by the Federal Government. Whether we like this or not it has become the natural course of the political stream. In the near future, States for all intents and purposes will be irrelevant. If you do not agree with this, suggest to me the pieces of legislation lately passed that reinforce the strength of the States. 

 

There are States now, if it wasn’t for the Federal Government underwriting them, that would be effectively bankrupt and therefore have lost the capacity to deliver basic services which is supposed to be their core function. 

 

The natural progression over the history of our nation has been away from a federalist system to a centralist system. 

 

Philosophically this is very disconcerting but the actions and practices of all political parties has brought this about so they are all responsible for it and now I find in all sectors there is a loss of faith in the purpose of States. Unfortunately the reality of the financial ramifications of where we are currently, further exacerbates this shift because our Nation is quickly getting to a situation where it won’t be able to afford three tiers of government and it is States that will be removed. Therefore the National Party has to have a strong role in Federal Politics.

 

The State’s house, the Senate, has never been in living memory ever really a State’s house. Rather it has been an endorsement of the major political parties’ views in the Lower House with an interplay of parties of sectional interest. Even this week, I have heard people ask what Malcolm Turnbull is going to do in the Senate on the ETS. I must be missing something or more appropriately Malcolm is as he has never made a division in the Senate yet. Not that he is supposed to he is in the Lower House.

 

We need a bicameral national parliament to protect ourselves from totalitarianism and to mitigate at times the misconstrued ideas of a prime ministerial office and the executive. The purpose of the Senate was to take this problem into account, thus Tasmania with a population roughly of the Gold Coast, has 12 senators however the Gold Coast has none. The question is, without taking away from Tasmania, how do we make the Senate more relevant for the people of the Gold Coast? 

 

To recreate the efficacy of the Senate we have to get the Senate to represent regions within the State rather than the State. In fact in the future I strongly believe it will be regions within what was the State.  Each region would elect two senators and this would give regional people a better representation in a current tide that is putting more and more power into the metropolitan vote.

 

If New York can only have two senators, the same as Montana, then Brisbane can have two senators and North Queensland have two senators and four other regions in Queensland two each as well, elected at each election. We do that in any case currently in the ACT and the Northern Territory. 

 

Let’s face it, in my State nine senators come from one town Brisbane, one Senator from Townsville, one comes from St George and the other Senator has been in the paper a lot lately about exactly where she lives.

 

If you are elected as a Senator from a particular region you will have to be relevant to a geographical area to an extent that you get a quota. Assuming two are elected at an election from each region and one gets 40%, another gets 30%, and the rest of the quota exhaust, the new senators would have to be geographically relevant rather than just sectionally relevant. In time, people might even get to know their name.

 

It is essential in keeping a spread of power in our Nation that there be constitutional recognition of local government. This will be the forerunner for direct appropriation from the federal government to local government for the provision of certain services, with strong and severe oversight against local political nepotism and corruption.

 

What was the ethos that supports farming the initial base of the National Party? Farming is in essence small business. So let us develop on a path that is philosophically consistent with the inception of our political ideals in the second oldest political party in Australia.

 

Just as demographics have brought about a metropolitan centralisation that has disenfranchised regional Australia, commercial centralisation has disenfranchised small business. 

 

Following from these principles the National Party has at its centerpiece a commitment to the Australian individual’s right to go into business and not be excluded from the commercial class.

 

Critical to this defence of free enterprise is ensuring that the ability to produce at a profit is not compromised by the over centralisation of the marketplace. It is implicit in our desire for freedom that freedom encompasses that our own endeavours lead to our own future. Exclusion from the process that allows our endeavours and exertions to be the major determinant of our future, is a limit on our own freedom. 

 

The self determination of the individual vitalises the Nation. The corporate manual of the organization emasculates the more total display of the variety of views. Small business allows you to say “it is my business I can say what I like”. 

 

Australia has the belief that small business is protected by the ACCC. It is obvious the ACCC at times has a tendency to ignore the rules of our Nation’s Parliament, such as their aversion to enforce the Birdsville Amendment. In most other instances the ACCC doesn’t have the power that people believe it does. The result is market centralisation and that is exactly what we have got in all major sections of our nation. A handy little scapegoat for the Government and others is to say it is all the ACCC’s fault.

 

In fact, our Trade Practices Act is weak and that is detrimental to competition, small businesses and consumers. Our merger law is weak and this allows markets to become highly concentrated. As markets become concentrated consumers face higher prices.

 

We need a strong law stopping companies from abusing their large market share to drive out independent operators. Those independent operators are critical to competition as once they are driven out of business consumers face higher prices and less choices.

 

We need a law against geographic price discrimination, a practice that large companies use to drive out independents. Large companies should not be allowed to charge different prices at different locations in the same geographic area as this is harmful to competition and consumers.

 

We also need a divestiture power to break up large companies that act contrary to the consumer interest. Finally and very importantly we need clear and unambiguous food labeling laws so Australians can have the choice to buy Australian.

 

Why should we be worried about market centralisation? Quite simply because with market centralisation comes political power that that wealth can wield in Canberra to the exclusion of what would otherwise be the democratic weight of the Australian people.

 

The centralisation of market power in retail, in banking, in fuel and in commercial shopping space, has been embellished by those with the political power to pursue their interests in Canberra, at the expense of the greater freedom of the Australian people. 

 

The ultimate and now very prominent reflection of centralised politically endorsed, commercial power is the global advent of sovereign wealth funds and wholly owned sovereign government entities. This is the anathema of the aspiration of the private business as the protector of the myriad personal philosophies.

 

The National Party has a great understanding of those small businesses in our nation’s marketplace being squashed by a quasi confused religion. No better exemplified than by Mr Rudd’s removing the single desk for wheat to, in his parlance, let the market rip then later inflicting Australia with his sermon of “I do not know what I am but I’m not a neoliberal who apparently are people whose character is questioned because they let the market rip.

 

When small shop owners in large shopping malls are paying 10 times and sometimes 20 times more per square metre than the anchor tenant, what we have is not competition, but blatant exploitation. 

 

When small shop owners in large shopping malls have to disclose their incomes to the shopping mall owner, so that the shopping mall owner can decide what to charge them in rent, this might be common practice but it is also a form of commercial serfdom which in its day was also common practice. The potato farmers of the 21st century travel to their fields in lifts from the shopping mall car park.

 

Just as the exploited tenant in a shopping mall makes the shopping mall highly profitable, regional Australia is the often forgotten source of our nation’s wealth because it is not centred on a 000 postcode but is the place where our primary source of our income is determined. 

 

If you look around your living room tonight and what you are wearing today and decide that you live in an abundance of imported goods, in fact imported goods which gives you the standard of living that you expect, then you must ask the question who is putting things on ships and sending it in the other direction or is there some new miracle of commerce where people send you something for nothing. I suppose they do in the short term, it is called borrowing.

 

So we see the National Party in the Senate reflecting as its core issue the rights of regional Australia and small business, in many instances one and the same thing. The National Party in the Senate is not just a party for farmers. It is much more. We are the party of small business, regardless of where you are in our Nation, and if you look at our Senate team this is a reflection of our members. I am an accountant, Fiona is a farmer, Wacka owned a hardware machinery shop, Bossie was a manufacturers agent and Nigel was a fisherman. That is small business, that is who we are and that is what our political members reflect in the Senate. The decency of hard work, social responsibility, service to your community and individualism exemplified by the commerce of small business.

 

Now after discussing the course of the political stream into the future and who the National Party in the Senate represents and why and who we in the Senate actually are in person, let us look at the current economic political path to destitution that our Nation is on.

 

It bothers me that this Government, at a more visceral level, allowed the disguise of its more radical reforms and its ongoing administrative failures and latest significant policy jettisons and its ludicrous fiscal belief in an imported plasma screen inspired domestic recovery, as simply necessities of the current global economic situation. 

 

When the global financial crisis started the Labor Party blurted out like some B grade movie “go hard, go early, go household”, but they appeared to leave out “go to hell in a handbasket”. We are now seeing that this nefarious foresight has meant that the global financial crisis is quickly becoming, and possibly has become, the Australian financial crisis and this will affect those at the political edges the most, once more regional Australia and small business. 

 

As our capacity to borrow now disappears, remember all our savings of course are gone, the public expenditure will start withdrawing to basic essential services in big metropolitan centres. To regional areas we will give you potholes. 

 

Do the sums, forget netting off to such vagaries as HECS debt. Concentrate on real debt with real repayment requirements and this will include a soon fully drawn 200 billion dollar facility then add tomorrow’s extra requirements somewhere between 100 and 200 billion dollars, plus what cannot be moved in bonds to finance the Broadband commitment plus the underwriting of the States’ real debt of 150 plus billion dollars.

 

Somewhere between 450 to 500 billion dollars owed by governments within the sovereignty of Australia which the Federal Government has promised to repay, that means that somewhere within our Nation in the near future, at a conservative cost of funds of say 6% considering we’re at historic lows at the moment, we will have to find at least 27 billion dollars a year just to pay the interest. Now they wont find it so you know what they will do, they will just borrow more money to pay the interest. That is economic palliative care before an uncomfortable demise.

 

To those in the commerce of small business you will be competing against a Labor inspired diluvium flood of debt that will drown out excess equity and in a recovering global economy, force interest rates in Australia through the roof.

 

As I strongly suggested in Senate Economics Committee meetings some time ago, we will be unable to pay back this debt. 

 

I have never seen anything so peculiar as the exit strategy that was handed forth in the little orange book by Mr Swan in the last stimulus package. Basically what we had was two bullet points that said when things get better we will pay the money back. I never knew it was so easy. If I have to go back to accountancy I will try this out on sundry bank managers. I will sit on behalf of my client on the other side of the bank manager’s desk and say “you see Mr Smith of the bank, Mrs Jones will pay you back that $2m she owes you when things get better”. In the past I have always found this slightly more difficult than what was proposed to me by the Treasurer.   Paying back debt should be the absolute primary motivation for this current government.

 

I truly believe, however, that our government may have gone beyond the tipping point of no return where you can pay for it out of the general running of the nation’s business. Now our only alternative is absolute radical reform, as I suggested at the start of this speech in regards removing a tier of government, and sales of major publicly owned assets. 

 

This will be one of the greatest and spectacular blunders of any government in the history of our nation that they, starting with $21.6 billion of cash in the bank, and reserves aplenty, in their first term would be asking permission to go beyond $200 billion in debt and this was apart from the underwriting of their State Labor Government brothers and sisters with their $150 billion plus sub prefecture debt and then the underwriting of the banks, and then the creation of Ruddbank and the naïve belief that the bond market is the eternal friend of misguided treasurers and that credit agencies don’t know what they are doing and will let you get away with it and on and on it goes but not happily ever after.

 

It is all going to end in tears. As an accountant I have seen this so many times before and believe me just think about it as you are driving home tonight because it is not that complicated. How would you, or could you possibly pay this money back?

 

A conservative view is genuinely conservative – not the transient conservative branding of a Labor leader on the make. Apart from its fiasco in finance, we believe that Government has no purview to assume rights to private property either. Private, almost by definition, means we are talking about property of the individual, rather than the community.

 

For those on the land, the greatest threat to our livelihood comes from the blanket assumption by various Governments that their conclusions on environmental matters give them the right to direct our use of property.

 

This has led to any number of restrictions and taxes, and I note from mid-April a particularly bizarre example that the NSW Government is now taxing the collection of rainwater in dams. The dams are private property, as is the land on which they sit. It is not a gift from the Government, and nor, for that matter is rainfall.

 

And this isn’t an issue restricted to rural Australians. Anyone running a small business in this country knows how much easier it would be if various Labor Governments weren’t kow-towing to the private interests of their union base and urban white collar green.

 

I’m quite comfortable with Governments providing the structure to limit the risk of industrial and environmental exploitation, I just don’t see why the minority interests of the trade union movement or well read, well meaning environmental zealots, are allowed to dictate those limits or exert influence vastly beyond the proportion of their numbers.

 

So in summary the National Party’s role in the Senate is to mitigate the effect of the executive who pitches, to bring about their continual role in power, with policy designed and packaged for the swinging voter of the centre. The National Party must be a voice in the space that is left by the move to the centre and most importantly, the National Party must go forward with policy that reaffirms its belief in its core constituency, small business and regional Australia.  

 

Within the National Party there is generally a social conservatism however I don’t believe that any party should have a platform that relies totally on moral views, which have a bad tendency to catch us short. There will continue to be an expectation that the National Party will exert a reaffirmation of the Judaic Christian principle that underpins the freedoms and liberties from which we all benefit. However we as a Nation rarely think about where these freedoms came from and are only too willing to worship the vacuum and denigrate the premise on which our society is set. I don’t think the National Party has much room for growth in the Swat valley.

 

In closing, our historical farming roots help us understand why green things grow and we can cast an eye over the political fence, to see why a core philosophy clearly delineated is a successful political dynamic in the Senate.

 

Ambiguity on the political wings is a path to oblivion. For Australia the loss of the National Party means that those away from the centre political demographic would only be represented by that infuriating tokenistic gesture of “look at the things we have done for you” in the process of doing everything for the people we go out to dinner with in Canberra.

 

CONVENOR: Barnaby Joyce, thank you. Time for our period of
questions now. Our first is from Simon Gross.

QUESTION: Simon Gross from Science Media. Just a short first
one. What position do you play for the Frail-Necked
Lizards?

BARNABY JOYCE: Well, yesterday I was playing everywhere but I was generally trying to play out of trouble but second row, which is the position where useless people play, who you don't want to see much of.

 

QUESTION: Well, it's interesting you say you're trying to play out of trouble because you're obviously a team player. You're a member of the team there and you're a member of the firsts in the National Party, you're a member of the firsts in the Coalition but you don't have any shadow ministerial responsibilities. It's a bit like they're happy to pick you because you draw certain parts of the crowd but they don't want to give you the ball. I'd like you, if you could, just focus on your
philosophy as a team player within the National Party and within the Coalition and how you explain that and justify that in terms of your maverick status.

 

BARNABY JOYCE: Sure. Well, I think one of the greatest frustrations and one thing that's reaffirmed to me as I travel around the countryside is people - they're greatest concern in our nation is that they don't want to see only one voice as sort of a shoebox type of policy delivered back to them through the television set.

Their expectation of myself and my role in the Senate is that you have the capacity at times to say I hear what you say but I'm going to take it away and get back to you. I don't believe that being a good team player, if team player's what you want, is sort
of a blinded sort of aspiration to do everything that is said without question. And I've seen overwhelmingly in my trips around - not just around Queensland but around the nation - that that is also the aspiration of people who talk to me. What is not a team player is if I was to go out and vote, you know, put the Labor Party into government. I don't think they'd accept that, but the capacity to mitigate, to effect, to change is expected. And if we believe in the Senate then surely we've got to believe that's the purpose of the Senate. I mean what is the purpose of the Senate if
it is just to be an extension of the aspiration and the will of the lower house? If that's what people really want, if that's what they really believe then do yourself a favour and get rid of the Senate. And I think that would be a terrible outcome for our nation. I live in a state with a unicameral system and there's all sorts of encumbrances on the freedom of the individual and the political system and the legal system that come about because of that. My role as a team player is to make sure first and
foremost that the National Party goes forward because that's the team I play for. Secondly, it's the Coalition. But underneath all of that I do that on the premise that whilst there is a state called Queensland and my job is to represent them. So
they come first, National Party come second and Coalition comes third and I can't be doing too bad, my colleagues did vote for me as leader.

 

CONVENOR: Next question's from James Massola.

 

QUESTION: Senator, James Massola from The Canberra Times. Look, in the Senate inquiry into the $42 billion stimulus - and again today you've criticised the cash handouts. In the inquiry you specifically called for infrastructure spending which Labor's done with the broadband network which we can expect them, it
seems, to do in the Budget tomorrow. What's your position? What's the National's position on that spending?

 

BARNABY JOYCE: Absolutely, well there are some good things. It's like this, where the Labor Party are they're like - as I said this morning, they're like someone who's been on a bender for the last two years and now they're turning up with the plans for the house. You know, you say well, it would have been handy if you did that before you spent all this money elsewhere. Now they're criticising the Coalition which is like the town drunk turning up to be president of the Temperance League. It is - there are some very vital things in that infrastructure package. If they were
going to really deliver the inland rail, then that is a great outcome, okay. That is going to increase port interconnectivity, it's going to give people in Melbourne a chance to be part of the resources boom with the transport of produce south, it's going to create a corridor of commerce. It's something that is policy of the National Party so of course we'll be supporting it. What I worry about is the priorities of where this fits. See, apparently the inland rail and the infrastructure corridor that they're going to build and all the other infrastructure projects that come forward are less important than ceiling insulation to be stuck in your roof for billions of dollars for rats and mice to run around and urinate on.

 

I just don't quite see this sort of hierarchy of needs that they have. Apparently boom gates are more important than the infrastructure package and of course the most ridiculous one, the $900 cheques that are called rubbish from the word go. We said it should be spread across the floor on Christmas Day with made in China written on the back and everybody said how evil are you for saying that? You know, you don't understand economics. Well, apparently after a period of time, it seems that people's views are changing. Well, that was an absolute ludicrous idea that we
could kick-start a domestic economy with the purchase of imported goods through retail stores who don't have to build new retail stores to sell you more product. The aggregate capacity of the economy does not increase by an increase in retail expenditure. It increases by infrastructure expenditure. The problem we have in our nation now is how on earth do we pay for it?

 

CONVENOR: Peter Williams.

 

QUESTION: Peter Williams from The West Australian. Can I just ask, what do you think are the chances of having an early double dissolution election later this year and how do you think the Coalition and particularly the Nationals would fare?

 

BARNABY JOYCE: I think that a double dissolution election would not auger well for the Labor Party. I think people would call it for what it is. They would say that you were going to the polls because you have created a complete and utter economic train wreck and now you're going to duck for cover. It doesn't matter what the premise is you go to it, that is front and centre of the Australia psychic's mind at the moment. How are we going to get ourselves out of this current economic malaise?

But if double dissolution is what they want, okay, let's have it and what we will do is go to the Australian people with the best reasons for why the National Party has a strong role in representation, has been consistent in its economic views within the Senate, has been consistent on its views it's taken to the people.I would love to be on every corner saying your current prime minister at each breath talks about the
word decisive. I'll show you how decisive he is. The other day he had as a key plank apparently the emissions trading scheme, which we've never believed in, but he apparently did, and then he's so decisive that he's got to delay it for a year.

You know why? Because reality has come storming through the door. His own people in his own seats have said if you go forward with that, we'll go forward without you, and that's why he's changed. So I don't think we're going to have a double dissolution because we would plug it for everything that it's worth. But we're prepared for it if that's what they want.

 

CONVENOR: Lucy Skuthorp.

 

QUESTION: Senator Joyce, Lucy Skuthorp from Rural Press. You made reference to the disproportionate nature of political representation in some parts of Australia
and more particularly regional representation. Will the Nationals push for any constitutional change to try and get a more balanced representation in areas
so that we don't have electorates the size of Germany and Japan?

BARNABY JOYCE: Well, that's a good question Lucy and specifically within the speech I've tried to address that by saying, you know, it's peculiar in our nation where you can have 12 senators from each state. And whenever you go to a function you say to people if you can name the 12 senators from your state I'll
give you a case of beer as you walk out the door and they haven't had to give one away yet. But the only way we can make those people relevant is to make them geographically relevant rather than sectionally relevant. Sectionally relevant is sectionally relevant to a specific issue like, you know, apparently the Greens don't represent people, they represent trees. You know, other people say family first. This is everything that, you know, Sir James Baker from - you know, the founder of the Senate, Mr Baker, stated would happen. That if we went down to this one-in all-in approach to politics that it'll become the bastion of sort of single interest parties.

Now, to make - I would support - I think that necessity over time is going to impinge on our desires to keep the states. I think that necessity over time is going to say the world who we owe this money to is going to say to us, you will pay us back.

 You wont just recapitalise your interest, you will pay us back. We're going to have to look for massive savings, massive, recurrent savings and they're going to say well, who are we lending the money to? The Government, and they'll look at the
Government and say, well, where are you spending your money?

 Then they'll just pull out and they'll say, well, you've got three tiers of government. How do you reckon you'd go with two? What are you going to
say back?  Because the more debt we get you understand that -
see you start off managing debt and then the more debt you get, debt actually manages you and debt takes over from you in the management role and
that's where we're getting to. Once you start - once you can't even make your interest payments, as our good friends at the - you know, from National
Australia Bank will tell you, then you go to a thing called the asset management unit where they say mate, this guy is hopeless, can't even make his
interest repayments. Capitalises his interest, finish. You know, get him
off the books. Now, that's our nation. So where are the massive savings going to come from? We're going to have to have sales of public assets.

 I don't know which ones. We'll literally have to list them all and then you'll have to go to a major realignment of how you're doing. Now, in the
process of doing that, we must keep an upper house and to get regional relevance back - see the Senate was supposed to represent people from regions.

It's just that at that time we had four and a half million people so, you know. Now in Queensland we've got the population of Australia. However, we've got the same sort of archaic form that, you know, you can have everybody just from one town
inside a state, and that's kind of bizarre.

 

CONVENOR: The next question is from Nicola Berkovic.

QUESTION: Nicola Berkovic from The Australian newspaper.  Barnaby, you mentioned earlier - well as you started, that the Nationals is at a twilight point I
guess, and over many years we've seen the Nationals have a declining share of the vote.

 You have tried to reinvigorate the party with your move to the lower house and that obviously failed. I'm wondering if you are the Senate leader of a
dying party?

BARNABY JOYCE: Well Nicola, I hope that - I joined the National
Party because I fervently believe in sort of, you know, the philosophies of where they're going. Let's work on the hypothetical that the National Party
goes.

 Well Nicola, what you're going to have then is policy driven by one person in one room in one office. Just like Mr Rudd determines the policy of the Labor Party, you'll just have this peculiar sort of  manifestation of politics that on the right side, it's
the views of one person.

 You only need to bring one person down here. You only need to talk to one person from that point on and I don't want that in our nation. I want the capacity for the person who's not listened to by our coalition partners the Liberal Party, to have another room to go to.

 I want to make sure that that person, if they go to  your room, that you are sincere if they can convince you to say no, I believe you're right and I'm going to
back you in. I'm going to vote accordingly.

 ow the National Party, since I've been the leader of it, on three occasions we've so-called crossed the floor. I don't know why it's such a big thing in
Australia. I really don't.

 You know, it doesn't make the news in the United States when some senator crosses the floor, but you know, you'd think the sky would fall in which case,
in my case, it must have fallen 28 times.

 But life goes on and I think a great sort of - you  know, if we could just - the source of this problem was that the Labor Party with Fisher, decided the
one-in, all-in approach so they emasculated the process of the Senate.

 They are the source of the problem and then the conservative side went in to bat to try and sort of  bounce that off. But I don't want the National Party to disappear. I don't think it will but the future is in its own hands.

 How does it desire to stay around is by a clear and a definitive statement of its own personal philosophies and then a willingness to back them in,
in how you vote.

 If you do that, you will grow the party base. But if  you want to live as a shadow then nothing grows in the shadows.

 

CONVENOR: Simon Jenkins.

QUESTION: Senator, Simon Jenkins from AAP. On emissions trading you, again, reaffirmed your position on that in your speech.

BARNABY JOYCE: Have I got to make it a bit clearer?

QUESTION: I'm just wondering, so you would - I take it, under
any circumstances you would not support any scheme whatsoever and would you - if not, would you be preparing for a Liberal/National split if it
came to the vote in the Senate?

BARNABY JOYCE: The National Party stated its position. If you go
forward with the emission trading scheme that they've just put forward, the answer's no, okay? People always sort of belt round the issue.

 The answer's no. There you go - no, no, no, no, no,
okay? So why? Because I'm trying to work out who  the benefactors of this scheme are. I'll tell you who the benefactors of the scheme are - are the
wonderful people at some serious stock broking houses who are going to punt in the first year, what, $11 billion worth of paper around the market place?

 And as I've said before, and I said it on Q&A, so  that's, you know, one half per cent commission, that's what, $165 million, or - yeah, $165 million.
They do it on a churn rate of three. You're getting up close to half a billion dollars in commission. Of course, they're going to be running in the door
saying we believe in - gosh it's getting hot in here, gosh it's getting hot and it's getting really hot in my pocket because I can feel something coming on.

 You know, this is them pushing forward the product and then we've got this idea that in pushing this sort of emission trading scheme around, we've got them
making money and people actually produce things, such as, you know, miners, aluminium industry, ultimately the farming industry.

 They're all going out of business. This is just perverse. We're making those who don't make us any export dollars wealthy and making those who
do make us export dollars broke.

 It is only our government in the middle of a recession throughout the world who has come up  with a policy to make a bad situation worse and
they did it with the ETS.

 It is - look at it from the sort of view of the farmer. What - 70 kilograms of methane per beast. So we've got 70 kilograms of methane per beast and a mark
up of 21 times, so that's 1,470 kilograms. So what - one and a half tonnes of permits you have to buy a year approximately.

 Let's say $30 - 45 bucks a year per beast. A dozen head of cattle. The Government turns up to you each year and says, you know, I know they've gone
down for it to put a ceiling at 10 bucks, but that's only for a short period of time. In the end the market will go back.

 So you'll go back to farmers and say, we want 45 grand out of you a year and they say for what? And they say well, to keep these people employed. Look at them, they're wonderful. George Armani suits, 7 Series BMWs, mate, you've got to look after them.

 You know, that is how it's seen in regional Australia  and the answer is no. So if people want to come up with another policy of reducing carbon emissions
and there's so many simple ways you could do it.

 You could just say we're going to have an upfront tax deduction of some sort for the implementation of capital that is carbon effective. No brains - I
mean, no brainer. Who's got a problem with that?
Go forward with it.

 But we've devised this [indistinct] scheme. This is just so intricate and marvellous and wonderful and completely and utterly implausible. At the end of
the day, also we've got this ridiculous position where it's not actually going to reduce - do anything. It's 5 per cent of one and a half per cent of
something of, you know, of [indistinct] carbon which is three to four per cent of something with - what, 378 parts per million. It is three-fifths of five-
eighths and I can't say the rest.

 And you know, and for that you are going to go up to people in some regional economies and say for that Mackay, you are going to have a 20 per cent
reduction in your economy.

 We're worried about a recession, one and two per  cent reduction in our economy over two quarters. How do you reckon they feel in regional areas when
they say 20 per cent reduction, a kick in the guts for  you. What do you think their views are?

 Try that one out in a pub in Mackay and see how
long you last.

 

CONVENOR: Dennis Atkins.

BARNABY JOYCE: The answer was no, by the way.

 

QUESTION: I think we figured that. Senator, Dennis Atkins from The Courier-Mail. I was interested in your speech when you talked about the only place where Labor
had lost government was in Western Australia where, I think you said they had two conservative voices.

BARNABY JOYCE: Yes.

QUESTION: Can we take it from that that you do not believe that Labor would have been defeated in Western Australia if they had have faced a Coalition
opposition? And, if that is the case, what does that say for the political chances of the coalition fighting the next election from opposition federally?

 

BARNABY JOYCE: I think that Western Australia proved that, you know, when you speak to distinct sections you get a distinct vote. What I base it on, Dennis is, look at what the Greens are doing.

 Every time we talk about a Labor win, it's not really a Labor win, it's a Labor/Green win. It is really a Labor/Green win. It's just that they have not
formalised their arrangement.

 What really frustrates me, and I saw it the other day when they were going - I think it was the alcopops or some other piece of legislation they put up - and
when it became apparent that the Labor Party,

Dennis, were not going to get their legislation through, they wanted a deferment of the legislation.

 So, Senator Evans walks down to Senator Bob Brown and says read this out, which is to defer parliament - to extend parliament to the next day.
Bob Brown stands up and reads it out.

 Then Senator Joe Ludwig stands up and says: I don't think that's what you meant to say and corrected him. I thought this is the best coalition
that no one knows about. This is spot on. This is brilliant.

 Of course I get the frustration of, you know, the last election up in Queensland hearing the Labor Party have won and I thought, no they didn't win. The
Labor Party and the Green Party won. That's who won.

 You know, without their vote they'd never get there. So the lesson for us is this, their political formula is succeeding. Ours, where we currently sit, is not.

 Now things morph and change and flex over time, but I believe that the National Party, to answer your question, if it is not distinct at the next federal
election, then the effect to the whole coalition will be a loss.

CONVENOR: The next question is from Emma Chalmers.

BARNABY JOYCE: Emma, you made it down.

QUESTION: Hi senator, I did.

BARNABY JOYCE: Welcome to Canberra.

QUESTION: Emma Chalmers from The Courier-Mail. Thank
you, Senator. There's speculation today that the Government might tie some of its spending measures, like pensions, to some of its cuts like
changes to Medicare threshold.

 If that's the case, how will you deal with that in the  Senate when they come up if the spending initiatives you support with the cuts you don't?

BARNABY JOYCE: No, well I don't think - thanks Emma. I don't think
that anybody has got a right to say to the Senate you will just pass the Budget, you know, regardless. I think obviously the vast majority of the Budget
always gets passed.

 But, you know, let's not query that if around the edges there are certain sort of deviations because that's what the Labor Party's done to us.

 I don't believe the government should be - you know, I don't believe the Senate should be obstructionist or ridiculous. I don't think it should just wholesalely say we blocked the Budget.

 You know, if they want to send themselves into the political wilderness so be it. But I think we do have a right, just as I've done today, to clearly spell out to
people exactly where we're off to and try and suggest some ways we might be able to mitigate those effects.

 We have got to really look, you know - this government told us last year that we were supposed to be having, what, a $22 billion surplus now? Now
we're heading to what, a 50 to 70 billion dollar deficit?

 The reality is we are really in a world of trouble and going out the back door at a rate of knots. So we will look at it piece by piece Emma and my role in
hopefully Senate Estimates will be part of that and  the National Party will be prominent in trying to sort of flesh out some of these issues. But let's see
what they give us and I'll get back to you.

 

CONVENOR: Michelle Grattan.

QUESTION: Michelle Grattan of The Age. Senator, following on
from Dennis's question and your answer to that question, aren't you really saying or implying that the Nats should break from the Coalition federally?

 If you're not saying that, how do you rationalise having a different position which your opponents - or a very different position, which your opponents
would simply portray as divisiveness?

BARNABY JOYCE: Thanks Michelle. Good question. I had to say that
but, Michelle, it's a case of you don't have to differentiate every time. People always worry about how many times we differentiate Michelle, but I
think it was about 99.9 per cent of the time, or more, we vote with the Liberal Party.

 I can't understand why people get their noses so out  of joint when that's not the case. Now, we can't continue on in that process but the people have to
acknowledge that at times there will be differences between the National Party and the Liberal Party on certain issues.

 Why there will be differences is not because we want to make a difference, to wave a flag, to shine a spotlight on ourselves. It's because that through the
internet, via emails, comes a completely different view on policy than you're expected to go forward with and the ETS is a classic one that's, you know,
in the purview right now. In the past we had, you know, carbon sink legislation. There probably will be discussion in regards sporting facilities at regional universities, that is also coming up with, you know, administrative fees for sport. So that we can make sure that regional universities, as a mechanism of
delivering an educational outcome to people in regional areas, as long as that's maintained into the future, that we have to make sure that those
universities are somehow comparable to urban universities so that they stay open.

 These are areas that, you know, the National Party has a right in representing small business and regional people to back in. I think it's on so many things such as the Birdsville Amendment, issues coming forward against geographic price
discrimination where the National Party in the Senate has a strong view for small business.

 So, even in a marriage Michelle - Nat you'll have to lock your ears here - even in a marriage you don't agree every time. Well I don't. Nat disagrees with me even more. And no one says well that's the end of that relationship. They just say well, that's the way relationships go. There's nothing written on slabs of stone that you have to agree every time.

 

CONVENOR: Sophie Morris.

QUESTION: Sophie Morris from The Financial Review Senator.You've railed in your speech against the Government getting us deeper into debt. Yet you've also said that the Senate should be obstructionist. If it comes down to that the Senate has to make a decision about whether it should allow the Government to issue more bonds to go above that $200 billion ceiling, is that an issue where I can tell you feel strongly about it?

 Is it an issue where you should put your foot down? Have you spoken to Malcolm Turnbull about what the Coalition can do in the Senate to stop that
happening if you see that as such a threat to Australia's future prosperity?

 

BARNABY JOYCE: Well, one of the key things here Sophie, is I've spoken to Malcolm about what we'll do in the Senate. The first the thing the Senate will do is do its own job and we will, you know, have a look at it through our own dynamics of how we deal with it. How far are we going to extend Sophie? That's the question. I mean how - what, are we going out $10 billion, $20 billion, $100 billion? What happens if they come up to us and say we need another $200 billion and it becomes absolutely blatantly clear that that is it for us? Goodnight Irene. Even our own Doctor Gruen from the Treasury had said: when I was asking them before, you know, when people thought this wasn't going to go as far as it did but, to be honest, we smelt a rat. We thought it would.

 I remember asking Doctor Gruen, and I said look, what's too much debt? You know, what is it - is a trillion dollars too much? And they wouldn't answer the question. Then all of a sudden I said, you must have some answer of what is excessive debt?

 And then he finally relented and he said well, look 80 per cent of your GDP is too much debt. Okay, well, that's $900 billion. If you get to $900 billion all over. I think it's far below that. I think he was, you know, helping out his colleagues in the big
white house on that one. We've just gone through the numbers. We're
looking at four or five hundred billion dollars now.
We're half way there. We're not even out of the first term of this government.

 So they come back with the ridiculous extension of where the debt is, then I believe the Australian people will scream at us and they'll just say stop.
Stop it. Lock up the cheque book. Get away from it. You are insane.

 

CONVENOR: Gerard McManus.

QUESTION: Gerard McManus from The Herald Sun, Senator Joyce. Would not the simplest solution be for the Nationals to bail out of the Coalition in opposition
and then once an election's been held and the Liberals win, then you can strike a deal with them?

 Or even in the very unusual circumstance which occurred in Victoria in the 1950s where the National Party, or the then Country Party, formed a
coalition very briefly with the Labor Party?

 

BARNABY JOYCE: That would be very unusual and extremely brief. I belong to the conservative side of politics. I come from an Agrarian base on the conservative side of politics. That's my roots and I'm an accountant.

 To pull out of the Coalition is not the decision of one person, it's the decision of the party room.
Therefore, to speak on behalf of all my colleagues on what they may or may not do, you know, is something that shouldn't happen.

 But you know, that is a decision for the times. I feel that the Coalition is effective. I have a good working relationship with Senator Minchin. My first meeting of the day is with him but we have a robust relationship. At times we agree and at times we disagree. I wouldn't want to make us the issue in the current climate where my number one role right now is to make sure that we shine a light on where the Labor Party is off to.

 But I don't believe we are making ourselves an issue when things that are of core belief structure to us, we'd say no.

 I don't think that the idea of the Coalition resonates out there in the community as much as we think it does. They see the National Party as the National Party and the Liberal Party as the Liberal Party.

 They work together. They don't toss in bed at night thinking gosh, you know, I heard that so and so in the joint party room said this and Malcolm didn't
agree with it, and oh no, will the sun rise tomorrow? It all works itself out. But what they do recognise is that if we don't go in to bat on key issues for them in small business and on regional issues that they say well, I don't know. You tell me your relevance and so we've got to go and, you know - that is the
trick for us. At every election the first thing you do is sign a
coalition agreement and I think on the signing of a coalition agreement you've got to be very robust about what you expect and what you're going to do.

 Now the coalition agreement, you know, on the winning of an election, has to be a process of robust negotiations.

 

CONVENOR: Peter Phillips.

QUESTION: Peter Phillips, Senator Joyce. I work with the board of directors for the National Press Club. I wonder if I could just take you back to perhaps a personal
political reflection and following on immediately from the last question - the preceding question. Past towering figures of the National Party and its
predecessor the Country Party, and the seats which those figures held, one goes back to McEwen, Anthony, Sinclair, Blunt, Fischer, Anderson, Vale, some of the seats no longer exist because redistribution - Gwydir. Certainly, most of them are
not held any longer by the National Party or few of them are held by the National Party.

 One is greatly motivated by a lot of the things which you say and the way in which you say them. But there's got to be a more fundamental answer
surely, for the National Party. Would you like, in that context, to reflect more
upon what your role might be into your own political future?

 

BARNABY JOYCE: Well I think, my personal role and in my role as leader of the Nationals in the Senate, has been to be more robust in our political philosophies, in our deals and conveying that back to a community. I do believe that resonates. I agree with you totally, especially people like Black Jack McEwen, you know, even Joh Bjelke-Petersen because his seat's now held by - Nanango's held by an independent. It seems to be, you know, the kiss of death to be -
for your seat to be the leader in the Nationals. Now, I acknowledge that we have got to do something differently and I spoke about that in my speech.

 I acknowledge that there has to be, you know, clear sending back to the community that not only are you saying something different at times, you're
actually doing it, you know, to give yourself reason to exist.

 It is a decision though, not just for yourself, but it has to be supported generally by your colleagues, otherwise you are an independent in your own party
and there's no point to that.

 So, we just have to realise that if we have the conviction and courage in our own belief and really go back to our core constituency, which in a funny way has been assisted by the creation of the LNP because now the National Party at a federal level doesn't have to mix its metaphors.

 It can, you know, channel into regional issues and small business issues without sort of having to be careful about the urban green doctor's wife or - I never actually met the urban green doctor's wife, but they tell me she's out there. That we can be
more precise in our political dynamic and, as I said, looking across the corridor, looking across the aisle at the Greens, I always ask the question why do
they get nine per cent across the nation, or eight to
nine per cent? What are they doing? What's their formula for
success and are we just going to say that's just a freak of nature or are we going to say there's a lesson to be learnt there?

 

CONVENOR: A final question, Senator Joyce, getting back to
your concerns about debt. Are there any other ideas apart from getting rid of the states that you can put forward to save money, to rein in spending or to
increase revenue?

 Do you think Labor's on the right track with its means testing of so-called middle class welfare?

BARNABY JOYCE: Well, there is a very good way to, apart from getting rid of the states - well, you can get rid of Labor [laughs]. But of course, I would say that.
Look, there has to be - there's a whole range of things that are going to come into play.

 Obviously there will be, you know, a reassessment of so called middle class welfare and I think that people will look at that in the whole dynamic of how we do things.

 Fundamentally, I find some of the things they do though, David, are peculiar. This idea of getting grid of the Medicare rebate, of course if you believe in the process that people are influenced by price, that means they will move out of private health
insurance back into the public health system which of course is going to bring - which is going to give you sort of excess capacity in private hospitals and
an absolute sort of fiasco in the current public hospital system.

 So, some of these things will have to be looked at.
We have to - more and more the debt will manage us David, that it will get to a point where people - see this is what - if we don't get control of it now, this is what's going to happen.

 We're going to end up in the Californian situation where basically California ran out of money to pay their public servants. That is it. People don't think that's going to happen but that's what will happen. That's what will happen when some wonderful
person in China and Hong Kong and Japan and Saudi Arabia decide that they're not going to lend you any more money, or decide that they're not
going to roll your bills. Then you've got a big problem. Then you've got no money and then you people have to deal with this point that they'll go to
the public hospital and say the doctor's not here because no cheque ever turned up in the mail and he's left or she's left.

 Then in their infinite wisdom the Government will do this thing called quantitative easing where they'll go and print the money and, of course, that means
your money in your pocket is worthless.

 So the debt will manage us so what I've set down in that speech is the big one, where there is a continuous capacity for an immense saving that although I philosophically don't believe in it, because I believe that it should be decentralisation of power that it is imminent and it will be pushed
upon us.

 Away from that. you will be piece by piece by piece, will be the removal of public infrastructure, like public hospitals and it will all go towards you paying some of it, then more of it and more of it and more of it and more of it until, in all essence, it's a
private show.

 Why? Because the Government will have no money. You know, there is so many mechanisms that will bring about it and then of course the state governments will - they'll sort of have palpitations because of their incapacity to get hold of funds. So
they will go on a desire to try and raise money at a state level and so you'll get the reintroduction of such things as probate tax, death duties. These things will flow back into the agenda as state governments go desperately looking for funds to try
and keep the vital infrastructure of their own states together.

 These are the tea leaves that we've got to read. I remember Doctor Hyden(*) [indistinct] telling me only back in February that - I said, when will this
$200 billion be fully drawn and he told me that it would be 2012.

 Now, he was wrong. Of course, we're not even half - well we're about half way through this year and now it's going to be this year. That is the trajectory
we're on. That is where we're off to. So you know, you can make the hard decisions now or you can have the people who provide you with finance make them for you at a later stage. The choice is yours.

 

CONVENOR: Barnaby Joyce, thank you. This was your first
address to the National Press Club and we certainly hope that you will be back to give another. We have a membership card for you here and also a pen
which might help you jot down that next speech too. Thanks very much.

 

BARNABY JOYCE: Thank you very much for that and I hope I didn't
bore you to tears.