Barnaby Joyce backs new Dawson Nationals candidate Andrew Willcox
DPM Barnaby Joyce primed Nationals heartland voters this week, shoring up the hopeful new kid on the Canberra block as a colleague he “loves to death” steps back from politics.
Mackay
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Waving a $20 note he plucked from the backpocket of his trademark jeans, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce told Australians why they must show Mackay respect.
“The reason this has worth is because somebody somewhere overseas wants it from us,” he said.
“They want to buy coal, buy iron ore, buy gas, live cattle, grain, cotton. If those boats were not off Hay Point, off Gladstone, that (note) would be worth not very much at all.”
A seasoned politician whose brand is regional Australia was right at home in the seat of Dawson — a Nationals heartland where he knows his audience well.
Stretching from just south of the Mackay CBD to the southern fringe of Townsville, Dawson voters are diverse but the resources and agricultural industries are close to many hearts.
Mr Joyce says without the Nationals fighting against 2030 Net Zero targets, this visit would have been to tell people they might lose their jobs.
He believes, knows, coal will be around for a long while yet.
“What people want is security of a job,” he said.
“What they don’t want is politicians with no pain to themselves making predictions for you they can’t actually back up.
“My view is that if you want to develop a parallel industry, go right ahead.
“And if it becomes apparent it can pay people the $120,000 to $150,000 a year that some will get working in a mine here, then people are going to have no problem with that.
“But don’t say to people there will be a job for you in the future if you leave your job now.
“There’s enough people out there asking people to lose their jobs, I’m going to be one of the advocates to make sure they keep their job.
“And if they want to develop an alternate job, I’ll support that but we’re not jumping off this lily pad until there’s another one that’s going to take the weight.
“It’s not just the people working in the coal mines, it’s everything down to people working in a hairdressing shop that makes money out of the wealth that comes out of these areas.”
While there is no viable path to renewables in 2022 that would keep food on the table for families relying on the mining industry, Mr Joyce is confident greater minds than his will find a way.
“I’ll let technology do the incredible tricks it has done before in the past,” he said.
“Government never developed a tax that invented the wheel … or internal combustion engine ... the ingenuity of human kind did that.
“Efficiency brings profits and profit is desirous of people who like to make money and so, if you give them the space to use what’s between their ears, then they will do a lot of this stuff, it will happen organically in any case.
“Car engines now are vastly more efficient than they were 20 years ago.
“Planes are vastly quieter than they were 30 years ago.
“Government has a role to play but it will not be the grand elixir that is going to make the world better.
“Ultimately this will be done by efficiency, by progression over time, to people wanting to make more units of energy out of more units of coal.
“If Australia genuinely wanted to do the greatest job it could in reducing carbon emissions, it would be developing the most efficient coal-fired power stations in the world and exporting that technology.
“That would do vastly more than any domestic policy because it’s quite obvious that with ships parked up at Hay Point, Gladstone, Newcastle, the world’s buying more coal at a higher price than it has before.”
It’s not his first rodeo. The words roll seamlessly off Mr Joyce’s tongue and he speaks with conviction.
As a former Queensland Senator, Mr Joyce says he’s not in Mackay for a ‘tokenistic visit’ and it’s too early to say he’s officially on the hustings.
But it’s clear Mr Joyce is shoring up what he hopes will be the new kid on the Canberra block as a colleague he “loves to death” steps back from politics.
Voters have handed George Christensen the Dawson office four times but he is hanging up his Akubra after chalking up some big wins for the Mackay region to spend more time with his wife and daughter.
The LNP held Dawson with a margin of 3.4 per cent after the 2016 election but there was an 11.2 per cent swing toward Mr Christensen in the 2019 election — boosted in the wake of a Bob Brown convoy trotting an anti-coal sentiment through the region that only served to strengthen allegiance to the Nationals.
Whitsunday Mayor Andrew Willcox has been selected as the Dawson candidate for the Nationals party.
“Andrew Willcox will be good because he’s born and bred in business as a tomato farmer,” Mr Joyce said.
“That’s incredibly important to me because I want people who are not just minions and cut-out cookies of people who have lived in Canberra.
“I want people who’ve had experience in the real world, especially in business.
“He’s also had experience in local government so he’s not going out to the batting crease with his pads on back to front.
“North Queenslanders have to be parochial, people get upset in Sydney ‘oh you’re so outrageous’.
“Well they have to be because Sydney’s got all the seats so if they’re a passive little gal or guy, they are going to get walked over and forgotten about.
“So you need the people from here to be a bit larger than life and I think Andrew has the capacity to do that as well.”
Where Mr Christensen has gained a reputation for crossing the floor and going against his party when he believes he is representing his constituents, he has also made headlines for less politically-desirable reasons.
Mr Willcox is likely to be more moderate in his approach to the role.
“No-one is a replication of the person who came before them,” Mr Joyce said.
“There will never be another George.
“I get annoyed when people do the Sydney snigger about George because really what they’re saying is ‘we just want you to shut up and be good little people and say nothing and let Sydney run the show’.”
But Mr Joyce thinks the grassroots LNP folk of Dawson have picked the right guy to take Dawson through the rest of this pandemic and into the future.
“Every person’s got their own particular style. The commonality I hope will be that both of them are parochial about North Queensland and won’t be a wallflower in their political career ... say ‘I heard what you just said then and I just want to call bullshit on that and I’m not going to tolerate that,” he said.
But for now, the pair is on the same page.
“I think coal has a long, long future in front of us both for power generation and for steel,” Mr Willcox said.
“If that does turn into a transition, then all those transitions whether it be electric cars, they need to be made with steel, or solar panels, made with steel.
“We have some of the best quality, clean-burning coal in the world.
“We should be providing that to the world for power generation and then letting them put it in high efficiency low emissions coal-fired power stations.”
Both Mr Willcox and Mr Joyce agree the Collinsville power station should be built — and soon.
“A high-efficiency, low-emission burning good quality coal can provide affordable and reliable electricity and... also for sovereign risk we should have a coal-fired power station in North Queensland,” he said.
“It’s fine for people to talk about renewables, and I have renewables on my house, but I know how much power that generates at night.
“I’m not going to go up to the hospital to tell an elderly person on a ventilator ‘you’ve got to hold your breath for the next 14 hours until the sun comes up and we can produce some more power’.”
But Mr Willcox has three key goals if he is voted in at the 2022 Federal Election — water security, road and telecommunications.
“I’m keen on Urannah dam, providing more dams for people in general. The advantage with Urannah is not just water security but you can put hydro on that and also a pumped hydro, that can be a good battery as well,” he said.
“I’m for renewables as well but I believe there needs to be a mix.
“If you just turn off what we have at the present point in time, that’s not sustainable.
“I’m fully supportive of looking after the environment but the only way you can look after the environment is to look after the economy.
“Good quality roads because that’s how we get our produce to market and how we get our supplies back up here.
“We need better data, we need to be able to make sure we can communicate better and if we do have some transition of jobs and you have some driverless trucks then I want to see those jobs here in Dawson and here in Mackay, here in Whitsundays.”
The Dawson electorate is as diverse as its incumbent member is divisive and the path to renewables will be as complicated as the pandemic.
Whether Mr Willcox, or his opponent Labor candidate Shane Hamilton, can fill the large void Christensen will leave remains to be seen.
But Mr Joyce has promised his door will be open to Mr Willcox who assures he will come a knocking if the Coalition is returned to government.
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