On the ABC’s Insiders program this morning, Member for New England Barnaby Joyce called for fuel rationing to ensure trucks get the fuel they need to keep the nation moving.
Speaking from his home at Danglelmah in the feature interview with David Spears, Joyce said he supported the idea of fuel rationing “one hundred per cent”.
“We’ve done it before,” he said. “We had even‑ and odd‑number plates in the past.”
“And I think it’s really important that you show the Australian people you’ve got a plan.”
“Now people are going to get angry about that, no doubt. But it’s better that they’re angry and say, ‘You’ve got a plan’.”
“Obviously, if you don’t have a plan and the worst thing happens, we can’t move food.”
Joyce was supporting of sending Australian Navy ships to the Strait of Hormuz to secure the oil supply.
“You have to be part of a global effort. If you are part of a beneficiary of it being resolved, you’ve got to do something for it.”
However, he did not discourage people from hoarding fuel, saying that there is no way to stop it.
“The truck drivers are buying it too, make no mistake about it, and the point is, they can’t get it. That’s the problem. They’d like to hoard it, but they can’t get it. It’s not available.”
Joyce also admitted that the Coalition Government he was deputy leader of made a mistake in not doing more to boost supplies, calling their decision to store fuel in Texas “stupid”, and advocated for the removal of funds from renewable energies to redirect them towards the development of a new oil refinery.
“We seem to have the government involved in everything else – in your ‘swindle factories’, your wind farms and your solar panels, your transmission lines. You have no problems reaching into your wallet and throwing money at billionaires as fast as you can to do something that doesn’t work and has completely blocked our electricity grid.”
“So yeah – take the money away from your swindle factories, from your wind towers and your solar panels, and your billionaires domestic and overseas, and put it into something that actually works, like domestic oil refining,” Joyce said.
“And open your oil fields. You do have them; Australia does have oil, lots of it, and start processing it all.”
“It won’t get rid of the complete risk of a crisis like this, not for one second, but it mitigates it and gives more confidence to people,” he said.
“When people find out you’ve only got two oil refineries, they worry.”
Joyce also warmly welcomed his former staffer Matt Canavan to the leadership of the Nationals.
“Matt’s a good guy, and I think it’s really important that we have a cogent and a forensic debate, and I’m sure Matt will be part of that.”
“I know, as I’ve said before, Matt will go onto the field on the balls of his toes and play the best game he possibly can. I wouldn’t respect him if he did less. I’ll do the same.”
But he was not so enthusiastic in his support of his own leader, blaming Pauline Hanson’s lack of education for her blunt messaging and recent claim that there were “no good Muslims”.
“I think attacking Pauline does not work like people thought it might have worked 15 years ago.”
“People see the issues. They see Pauline as having the courage to stand behind her convictions on certain issues,” he said.
“Nuancing what she said might have been better – but you’re asking Pauline to have had the same gifts and benefits and graces in life that so many other people did,” he said.
“Pauline has brought herself up by the bootstraps. She’s been a single mother, basically, and hasn’t had time to go to universities and do debating and everything else that everybody else has done.”
“So she’s very direct in her narrative, and I think that’s actually what Australian people like.”
He also conceded that One Nation has never delivered anything, arguing they are unable to deliver anything from the Senate, and pitched the best the party could do would be to negotiate with a party of government should they get some house seats at the next election.
“You’ve got to remember the Senate’s the House of Review. I mean, they’re there to review legislation.”
“The first lower house seat they’ve had is me,” Joyce said.
“Let’s go through a hypothetical. Okay, we get to the next election. The polling stays where it is. There’s going to be maybe 20 or so One Nation seats. No one is going to govern without coming to One Nation and seeing if they can get those numbers for supply and confidence.”
“I know how to do a deal.”
He also talked down the likelihood of One Nation winning in the Farrer by-election, criticising the Liberals and Nationals for preferencing Climate 200 backed independent Michelle Milthorpe ahead of One Nation.
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