Country Labor candidate for New England Yvonne Langenberg took a swipe at the Member for New England Barnaby Joyce, saying he would do well to study Labor's climate change and energy policy, with its focus on renewables, reducing the cost of power supply to consumers and businesses and investing in a sustainable future without leaving anybody behind.
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“But, instead, he wants to go back to the ark," Ms Langenberg said.
This is nothing short of disastrous, late in the second decade of the 21st century.
- Yvonne Langenberg
"When I heard the news that Barnaby Joyce was urging the construction of new coal-fired power stations, I thought, ‘there he goes again, raving on with his obsessions’, and thought little more about it.
“But then, I saw that he is actually proposing that the $4.5 billion planned for the extension of the Snowy Mountains hydro-electricity scheme be diverted to build more coal-fired stations, and that Energy Minister Angus Taylor was now hedging his bets. I realised this is a serious, assault on Australia’s climate change and energy policy."
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She thought Mr Joyce (and his allies) were going full throttle in reverse gear towards an energy policy more appropriate to the 1980's.
Mr Joyce laughed, then said he was far from obsessed with coal-fired power stations.
"Yvonne has got to talk to people out at Invergowie, see how they feel about solar farms and talk to people at Nundle, see how they feel about wind farms," he said.
"If you don't have a balance then you won't have a policy, and we need base load power. Now, base load power comes from coal-fired power.
"The biggest problem we've had in the past is that we've moved away from that reliable base load power, and our power bills have gone up and up and up."
Mr Joyce said the problem with Snowy Hydro .2 was its ballooning cost.
I'm interested in cheap power.
- Barnaby Joyce
"They talked about $4 billion, then they were talking about $6 billion, now it's moving towards $8 billion and you've got to ask 'Well, how much is this going to cost?'," he said.
"And is there an alternate way to spend the money? I mean, I'm interested in getting power, I'm not interested in entertaining a philosophical approach that makes power dearer for all.
"I can't see how you can invest billion upon billions of dollars on one form of power. You're going to have to get a return on it, and that's going to be in the power bills."