One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has taken aim at the government’s spending on renewables as a key part of Australia’s inflation issues.
It comes after treasurer Jim Chalmers signaled scant cost-of-living relief from the government in the next budget as it faces massive loan repayments due to borrowing costs.
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Inflation is yet to get under control despite major cuts to disability and aged care in the last federal budget, leading to the federal interest rate rising for the fourth time in a year to 4.6 per cent.
Joyce appeared on Sunrise on Monday alongside Labor MP Josh Burns who said inflation is a “really difficult problem … because it really hurts people in the lower and middle income the most”.
“We don’t want people to have the financial stress, we want people to feel like they’ve got a bit of breathing room and they can get through the week but we recognise that that’s not the case for too many people.”
Burns added the party is looking to spend in ways “that make Australia really a great place to live, to make sure that people have skills, to make sure we’re building more homes, to make sure that we’ve got medicine”.
“But I think what’s important here is that we want to be spending money on the services and the things that grow our economy, not on interest,” he said.
Sunrise host Nat Barr pressed Burns on the government’s spending, asking where Labor is intending to make cost-cutting efforts.
“It’s not an easy thing,” he replied, adding: “Do you cut all of the essential services? Do you stop making medicines $25 so people can afford it? Do you stop aged care services?
“These are really difficult problems.”
But Joyce chimed in saying it’s an easier fix than Burns is letting on, renewable energy.
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has said the party will gut renewable energy efforts to cut government spending. Credit: AAP, Sunrise
Joyce said One Nation would gut climate change measures, whose costs remain unknown because of private capacity investment schemes, and instead chose to attract both public and private funding for coal-fired power plants.
“We’ll be working on a mechanism of reducing the size of government,” he said.
“Last year, the Labor Party, on top of what they’re already spending, spent an extra $60 billion and this has an inflationary effect.
“There’s loose money goes into the economy and one of the big sections that they said money went into the economy from was the swindle industry, the intermittent power sector, the climate change sector.”
Joyce added that a One Nation government would also slash the public sector by refusing to rehire for some roles after a public servant retires.
Burns rebutted by saying the going back on renewable efforts would be a waste of already scant public funds.
“Take your tinfoil hat off for a second on your climate change conspiracies,” he said.
“We need to make sure we’re producing more and the idea that we would go back and take away all of the science-based renewable energy projects is just mad.”
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