Barnaby Joyce discusses Coalition's climate stance

Transcript

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Back to our top story: the Senate's rejection of the Government's emissions trading scheme. We were joined a short time ago by the leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, who was in our Parliament House studio.

Barnaby Joyce, thanks for joining us.

BARNABY JOYCE, NATIONAL SENATE LEADER: You're welcome, Tony.

TONY JONES: Now Tony Abbott wants to promote you to his frontbench. Are you up for it?

BARNABY JOYCE: Tony, obviously I am strongly considering it. That means I am more than likely to do it. It's not really a decision for me – it’s a final announcement for Tony. I believe that the reason for this is that was a very close vote, Tony. It was too close to want to go down that path again. And I think ...

TONY JONES: So bring all allies in close, have them stacked around you, so it looks like you've got a bigger vote?

BARNABY JOYCE: I don't want us to end up with that ETS. We only got ... Tony got in by one vote, everyone knows that. So there is a strong requirement to make sure that we consolidate the position so our nation is not lumbered with this massive new tax.

TONY JONES: What portfolio would suit you?

BARNABY JOYCE: Well, that's a question for Tony. Obviously I've got something in my mind but I am not going to announce that on Lateline. I don't know whether it's out there. But we've discussed the portfolio. Let's see what happened.

TONY JONES: Not minister for the arts or shadow minister for the arts?

BARNABY JOYCE: I could give it a crack Tony, but I think you would be rather shocked with the paintings.

TONY JONES: Is it true you're also considering a move to the Lower House?

BARNABY JOYCE: I think that's - yes, that's correct Tony. Obviously if I go to the ministry I think that a minister of the government, I've always personally had an issue with why they should be in the Senate. I think the Senate is there to review and amend legislation, not be part of the executive. As a shadow minister, you're still an inquisitor of the Government. So I suppose you can allow that but once you go to the ministry I should start to look for a seat in the Lower House.

TONY JONES: How quickly could that happen? Realistically, are you talking about running for the Lower House in the next election?

BARNABY JOYCE: That's a job for the executive of the party. I am just open and transparent and telling you exactly what I'm up to.

TONY JONES: Alright. You certainly seem to have acquired Tony Abbott's trust and admiration. What's this story about you waking him up very late at night in a hotel when he was scantily clad?

BARNABY JOYCE: I am just that kind of guy, Tony! No, I just happened to be approximate to where he sleeps and I just knocked on the door to wish him the best of luck and he came out in his grundies. So I had one of those very awkward conversations where you immediately turn around - it makes it even more of an awkward situation. So you have the most truncated conversation you can have when you have adult is standing in front of you with a pair of underpants on.

TONY JONES: He was wearing trunks then was he?

BARNABY JOYCE: No, he was wearing a very becoming, black pair of underpants, Tony. Do you want to know more?

TONY JONES: Is it at all strange to be led by a man who's so comfortable to be seen widely wearing very few clothes at all?

BARNABY JOYCE: Oh Tony, what I like about Tony Abbott is he has got both sides, the Ying and the

Yang of an admirable person. He is a Rhodes Scholar; he is a deep philosophical thinker. There is a depth to the character but on the same side he doesn't go on with garbage. He doesn't throw it in front of your face as some sort of conceited self-adulating superhero.

He is the man who swims in the surf lifesaving club, while at the same time he writes books. That I think is a dynamic of the Australian person that I like.

And because at times he comes up with areas that people disagree with but he sticks to his guns, that for me is a mechanism that means I can trust him because it means he says what he believes. So when he says something you have a fair chance he means what he says.

TONY JONES: Sort of a partially clothed Renaissance man.

BARNABY JOYCE: Well, I think that during his time in the chamber I have never seen him partially clothed. But he's robust and he is the same man who goes to Cohen and works with the Indigenous community; he goes out into the corners of our state; he is a true believer and he doesn't just talk the talk. He actually gets his hands dirty doing it. I think that is an admirable aspect and I would like a person like that to be the leader of my nation.

TONY JONES: All joking aside, let's get back to today's politics. Julia Gillard plans to give the Liberals in particular another chance to vote in February for the emissions trading legislation. Do they have any chance at all of shifting votes in that time?

BARNABY JOYCE: No, and I don't know what Julia is doing. Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard knows the constitutional mechanism that is before her and if she wishes to roll that dice, she should. She should stop playing these stupid games. The Australian people have been through this dilemma. They have contacted us in the tens of thousands. Their views have been represented and changed the aspect of the Parliament.

And Julia's response to that is he disregards the aspect of the Senate - and it wasn't that it just missed out in the Senate. It got well and truly defeated. But she doesn't accept that. She now wants to pursue this through Christmas which does start to raise question: Julia is it about the environment or is it truly about politics and a personal view?

TONY JONES: Yes, what do you think the Government is actually up to? Clearly to bring this back in February means renewing the debate in February. The theory might be they want that debate renewed and out in the open and in the public yet again before an early election?

BARNABY JOYCE: It's quite simple. She wants to create division; she wants to work on any division that she believes is present.

TONY JONES: To be fair, you've done quite a good job of creating division over the past couple of months yourself, but only within your own Coalition.

BARNABY JOYCE: What we've done is we've changed the aspect of the Australian people. We are resonating the correspondence that we received. And we received correspondence in the tens of thousands and that is immense.

One of my petitions or two of my petitions equals 20,000 signatures. Apart from that, 1,500 emails a day. It only makes since that you would react to that. It would be peculiar if you didn't.

The Australian people did not want this massive tax. Penny Wong was never able to prosecute the argument that what is the amount of carbon parts per million in carbon dioxide as a reduction in the atmosphere that we would get from the Australian scheme? She would never answer that question. We would have a repertoire of cataclysmic events. But no decisive answer and therefore this is a gesture.

TONY JONES: Do you think there will be an early election? Christopher Pyne last night told us thought March 6 was being lined up for a double dissolution early election. Do you think that's going to happen?

BARNABY JOYCE: Well, if Julia Gillard is saying we're coming back on February 1 to debate the issue we're debating today, that would suggest they're not. I believe is they're playing a form of political wedge mechanism, divisiveness. It might work well inside this building in here in Canberra but the Australian people just get furious with you. They say we've come to a conclusion, you're playing a game and we're sick of it.

What I think is the Henry tax review will come forward and the Labor Government will formulate an election around that.

TONY JONES: That is in February. So you're still anticipating an early election, because they can have as double dissolution election right up until the next half of next year - up until August I believe.

BARNABY JOYCE: There is going to be an election at some time and if we that have an election we should never be scared of democracy. If we're going to have an election, that is life. Isn't it wonderful that we get that opportunity. It is not so much a threat - it's a reality at some point of time in the future there will be an election and we just have to prepare for it.

But I just don't believe that this idea that we're going to have the vote again in February. That just shows that they're indecisive and they can't get over it. Get over it, get on with life and get back to the next item of politics.

TONY JONES: It's been a day for conviction politics in the Senate. The Liberals Judith Troeth and Sue Boyce both crossed the floor because they believe in human-induced climate change. Is it your conviction as well that global warming is not the result of human activity?

BARNABY JOYCE: No, I think there is a portion of human activity that does affect global temperatures, Tony. I don't know whether it to the same extent that others believe it and I certainly don't agree with the capacity of human activity as they set out to change it. I certainly completely disavow the principle that Australia, from a room at the bottom floor of a building in Canberra, can change the temperature of the globe. But that is what Penny wants me to believe.

TONY JONES: Aren't they asking to believe if the world acts together - Australia does it, other countries do the same thing - that's the way, acting together, that you bring down these global greenhouse emissions? So Australia has to do their part and every other country does their part.

BARNABY JOYCE: Tony, you've hit the nail on the head. If the globe acts together, and we're merely days before Copenhagen, yet they insisted on going through this ritual of putting this thing in now. It was not about the climate but Labor politics and a self-conceited, self-adulation project for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to go to Copenhagen.

TONY JONES: But I ask you about global warming. You believe in the theory, as some of the scientists that you've been shepherding around the bush call it, of global warming yourself, do you? You believe that man-made global warming is true?

BARNABY JOYCE: I believe that there is a portion of human activity that causes global warming. But Tony, the facts are 97 per cent of carbon emissions come from natural sources as you well know and 3 per cent come from human activity. We are talking about a 5 per cent reduction of that 3 per cent - a nation that only produces 1.5 per cent. So it's 5 per cent of 1.5 per cent of 3 per cent and, Tony, really, the numbers are getting so small, mate.

TONY JONES: You - we've been through this before. But in recent weeks - the reason I'm asking you about your beliefs on this is, in recent weeks you've been shepherding around the bush the prominent sceptical scientist Bob Carter to meetings, to town-hall meetings. He tells the audience, after you invite him to, he tells the audience there's been no global warming in their lifetime. None, zip, zero, none. Is he right or are you right?

BARNABY JOYCE: Well, Tony, I am not a scientist but I put the challenge back to you: why don't you have Professor Plimer, Professor Carter, Lord Christopher Monckton on your show.

TONY JONES: Well we have. You're making a redundant challenge. Because we have had Professor Plymer and Professor Carter on our show. Both of those people have been on Lateline and expressed their views. And we intend to in the future.

BARNABY JOYCE: Good, good.

TONY JONES: It's a redundant challenge.

BARNABY JOYCE: Have it for two hours and have it on Sunday night and you will top the ratings as the world sees an open and transparent debate. And that's what I want.

TONY JONES: Here’s a question for you. Have you equally taken climate scientists, Australian climate scientists, who in the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is a real and present danger to Australia? Have you taken them out to town hall meetings in the bush to have them put the opposite point of view to Bob Carter? Have you done that?

BARNABY JOYCE: But they don't lack a venue. They're being subsidised by the Government to the hilt. They've got every venue in the world. I have got pages and page and volumes of their material in my office downstairs at the moment. I've got the white paper sitting there. All these sponsored by the Government. I think it's only fair ...

TONY JONES: Well, it is not all sponsored by the government, to be fair. Have you read this science that's come across this desk? Have you read the latest IPCC report?

BARNABY JOYCE: I've been through three Senate inquiries and I am also hearing the issues of the East Anglia Climate Research Institute and we're seeing those emails come in. And we must start to ask the question: is there a culture behind this? Because certainly the discussions of Trenberth and Phil Jones and the dissenting views against John L Daly from Launceston.

Now I am not a scientist and neither are you. So let's have the debate between those who are. And let's have the venue on the ABC, Sunday night, two hours and you will top the ratings.

TONY JONES: But you are saying the jury is out on the climate science, is that correct? You don't necessarily believe it?

BARNABY JOYCE: I never believed the science is settled. If the science was settled, Copernicus would be dead. Sorry, he is dead - he would have been killed!

TONY JONES: Well done. Well picked up. Tony Abbott says the Coalition will have a strong and effective climate change policy. Why do you need one if you don't believe the science is settled or the science is real?

BARNABY JOYCE: There's so many things you can do without an emissions trading scheme. I am quite happy to go down the path of a strong environmental policy and a strong environmental policy that reduces carbon emissions. But I just don't agree with this view that the only path you can use is Penny Wong's and Kevin Rudd's emissions trading scheme.

That is such a narrow view.

TONY JONES: Then give us the alternative. What alternatives are there to bring down carbon emissions in Australia that the Coalition would bring into place in Government? So what will your policy be in other words?

BARNABY JOYCE: I am not on the frontbench yet. So I can't tell you Government policy, which means I can say what I like. So here goes.

TONY JONES: You've got one foot on the frontbench.

BARNABY JOYCE: First off and foremost we have a policy on biofuels, and we continue to promote that. You can look at the transfer of coal to gas, and that is a carbon reduction technique, and we can certainly go down that path. We must have an open discussion with the Australian people about nuclear power: zero emissions. I know we can't force it on people; we need to have referendums at a local government level to see if people want it. Let's at least have the discussion.

We can have capital-investment allowance to bring in carbon-efficient technology. We can look at the capacity for infrastructure such as rail to move a transport from road to more carbon efficient purposes such as rail. We can do all these things, Tony, without ever needing an ETS. As I say Tony, man did not go to develop the wheel because they taxed walking and they didn't tax horses to develop the automobile. So this idea that emissions trading scheme brings you carbon nirvana is ludicrous.

TONY JONES: Emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax: are you fundamentally against putting a price on carbon pollution?

BARNABY JOYCE: I think that if you do it without the rest of the world being on board - the major emitters: China, America, India, Russia - that's crazy. To use New Zealand as a prerequisite is not right.

TONY JONES: I am asking for your fundamental belief here. If America puts a price on carbon, should Australia put a price on carbon?

BARNABY JOYCE: Well, you start heading in a direction where you have got to start considering it. But let's see the legislation go through. This idea of targets is no good. Kyoto was a target Tony, and all the people clapped and cheered.

TONY JONES: We’re not talking about targets but a price on carbon; a price on greenhouse emissions; a price on the pollution.

BARNABY JOYCE: Tony, there is a price on carbon. The more efficient power plant is, the less it uses carbon, and that is a good outcome. We have got from the industrial revolution to now with a vast increase in carbon efficiency without a carbon tax. Why do we need one now?

TONY JONES: How would you feel about Australian farm exports having carbon tariffs put on them when they arrived in the United States, because Australia does not have a price on carbon?

BARNABY JOYCE: That is a fence you will have to jump when it's placed in front of you.

TONY JONES: It is in the legislation. It is in the American legislation - a proposal by 2018 to put carbon tariffs on any country that doesn't match America's carbon price. And they put that there so their farmers and their industries don't face uncompetitive challenges.

Would you in that case regard it as good idea, because that is what the Government is moving towards?

BARNABY JOYCE: I suppose in Australia we would have to put up protection mechanisms as well. Similar carbon tariffs so we don't get imports from China and South East Asia. What goes around comes around. If we want to start setting up trade barriers, let's go.

TONY JONES: I am simply asking, would you be prepared to have a price on carbon to protect Australian exports from a carbon tariff in another country?

BARNABY JOYCE: As long as we're protecting it from other countries as well, so we can then block out all the imports of food from South East Asia.

TONY JONES: Barnaby Joyce, we will have to leave you there. We're out of time once again. Interesting discussion and we will speak to you in the New Year, I imagine. Thanks for being here.

BARNABY JOYCE: I look forward to it. Thank you Tony, keep your clothes on.