JAYNIE SEAL, HOST: Joining us live for our mini debate is Assistant Trade Minister Tim Ayres and Shadow Veteran Affairs Minister Barnaby Joyce. Thank you both so much for joining us. We've had these debates before, they've been fiery, but I'm going to ask you politely to perhaps stick to your questions, about 30 seconds each answer I should say. First of all to you, Barnaby Joyce, do you think politicians should really be promising electricity price drops, as we've just been hearing this week with the debates?
 
BARNABY JOYCE, MEMBER FOR NEW ENGLAND: Well, what we've seen is the so-called modeling—RepuTex modeling—of the Labor Party has been thrown out the door. Yet they're sticking to it when they're trying to model our stuff. I think the biggest thing, the biggest model that you can possibly see is your power bill. Mr. Bowen just said then that they now have 46% renewables. Those were his own words. So it's not that they—its intermittent, by the way, they're not renewables, there’s nothing renewable about them. So you've got 46% intermittence and your power price has gone through the roof, and no manufacturing wants to come to Australia because our energy costs are out of control. That is the biggest model that you have to be aware of because it's the truth, it's in your power bill and anything else that the Labor Party says, take it on the same menu as the $275 promise.
 
HOST: Senator Ayres, Chris Bowen was unable to even answer the question on if energy prices went down on his watch. Why didn't he answer it? And can you perhaps?
 
TIM AYRES, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA: I certainly can. I mean, the problem with Barnaby's account of what's going on with electricity bills at the moment is that it fails to take account of what is driving electricity bill increases. And what is driving electricity bill increases is an aging coal fleet. Every single day over the last two years, there has been at least one unplanned outage in the coal fired power stations, and that is what is driving up power prices substantially for Australians. Now, when Barnaby was in government, there were 28 power stations around Australia—24 of them announced their closure when Barnaby was in government, and they did nothing about it, which means that they allowed the supply situation to deteriorate. More dispatchable energy capacity went out of the system in the almost decade they were in government.
 
HOST: All right, so looking at other types of energy—
 
JOYCE: Can I just look at that—can you just—can you just name one thing [inaudible] and just talking over the top doesn't mean you win. It means you're a loser, and it means you don't have a grasp of your [inaudible]. That’s what the Labor Party does because they don't know how to answer questions. They're incapable of it, so they try to get around it by just sort of talking through the noise. So when you want to stop, I'll ask you just one simple question. Tim, you're a smart man. You're a very smart man. Can you name me one country on Earth that has made their economy work and has cheap power prices with intermittent power? Just one, name me one.
 
AYRES: Okay, well, I'll give you two examples. Firstly, the whole world is moving in this direction—
 
JOYCE: Well, name me a country mate.
 
AYRES: Well, let me finish the answer—you and Mr. Dutton want to take us back to a period of completely [inaudible]. How about a region, New England, where you live—
 
JOYCE: Our power prices aren’t down mate.
 
AYRES: Just today, you see one of our largest gas companies signed up for renewable energy that comes from Uralla, 40% of their capacity for that gas company's needs for the future. Why? Because that gas company, BOC, needs to move to renewable energy—there are countries all through the region and all around the world that are relying on increasing levels of renewables.
 
JOYCE: [inaudible]
 
HOST: I have one—we're running out of time. I've got one more question—
 
JOYCE: Power prices here have gone through the roof, mate.
 
HOST: I wanted to get your responses on this question, which is a different energy source that we have not been talking about. We're not—this is not renewables. This is not nuclear. I want to get your take Barnaby, first of all. There's been mixed reaction on energy-to-waste incineration projects, and I believe there's about 10 projects at the moment, and that includes one in Parkes, New South Wales. We just had the mayor on here, and they are saying that it's enough to power 80,000 homes a year, capital investment of $1.5 billion. Hearing from scientists, though, it is going to be more expensive and more polluting than coal and gas. What do you think of these energy-to-waste incinerators Barnaby?
 
JOYCE: Well, I think that—you know, as you go down this impossible path of 82% intermittent power, it brings in other crazy ideas, and that's what we're seeing. Not only that, not only to be of 82% intermittent power, but going back to the New England, you're desecrating the landscape with wind towers and solar panels, which the government ourselves and Murray Watt in Senate Estimates said the farmers are responsible for dismantling. I mean, how on earth are they going to do that? Even Andrew Dyer, as a Labor Party ombudsman, said, with structural imperfections a couple of years ago, they'll cost over a million dollars a tower to dismantle. I mean, you’re going to have land with negative equity. What are we doing to our country? I mean, this is a regional program. You ask people out in the regions how they feel about the independent power precincts [inaudible] and yet, this is another idea that just sits in there because you're coming up with this crazy process that's never been proved anywhere on the planet.
 
HOST: 30 seconds to go, sorry to interrupt you. Sorry to interrupt you. And again, yes, speaking to a lot of people in Parkes, for example, a lot of people are going to move. And these are highly skilled, highly trained, educated people that have been living there for generations, on their farms. They have told me they are going to move from Parkes. They're not happy with this. Senator Ayres, I wanted to get 30 seconds of your opinion on these energy-to-waste incinerators, because Chris Bowen has said, stop the incinerator in his backyard, and we've got a screen to show people. What are your thoughts on these incinerators?
 
AYRES: Yeah, we've certainly got to go with the lowest cost, most reliable energy sources. I don't know anything about this project, but where the government is going is wind, solar, backed up by gas and improving our transmission sector. All of this seems to me—I mean Barnaby's, you know, made up a series of numbers there. The one number that you can't avoid is $600 billion which is their alternative plan, which will be funded from Medicare, cut from education—
 
JOYCE: You know, that’s garbage. That’s one power plant in New England, multiplied by 7.  ­­
 
 AYRES: —cuts to road funding—
 
JOYCE: —that is how complicated these gooses get—
 
SENATOR AYRES: —and if you look at the plant that’s about to be—
 
JOYCE:  —one power plant, well, let’s multiply that by 7 and we’ll get an answer.
 
SENATOR AYRES: —in Barnaby’s seat there, the nuclear reactor in Muswellbrook—
 
JOYCE: Where’s your $275 dollars mate?
 
AYRES: —there are very big questions about reliability and of course, water use in that area.
 
JOYCE: Crazy.
 
HOST: Gentlemen, it says on our screen as our viewers can see, Chris Bowen ‘Stop the Westen Sydney Incinerator… Again’, and I believe Richard Marles has tried to ban it in his electorate as well. We've got to wrap it up, but we'd love to continue this conversation with both of you. There's plenty to discuss. Thank you both so much for joining us.