Queensland election: LNP victory essential, says Barnaby Joyce

Barnaby Joyce says it is critical that the LNP win the Queensland election but it will be hard for the party to do so.

Barnaby Joyce in Tamworth. Picture: Antony Hands

Barnaby Joyce says it is critical that the LNP win the Queensland election but it will be very hard for the party to do so.

Because of his own by-election battle in New England, Mr Joyce said he had “no plans” to campaign in Queensland.

“It’s very important for us that the LNP win up there,” he said. “Otherwise, how do I get Rookwood Weir built, if I don’t have a government that wants to build it?

“How do I get a coal-fired power station built up there unless I have a government that wants to build it? How do we get more water infrastructure built?

“The only government that I think will do it with me is the LNP government because the Labor government’s just not on the paddock. The only conversation you have with them up there is about the Cross River Rail and some bullshit in the centre of Brisbane. It’s got nothing to do with the rest of Queensland.”

Of the prospects of the LNP, Mr Joyce said: “It’s going to be tight. It’s going to be a tough old game. I hope they do, but I do know that state extremely well and it’s going to be a tough election.

“Power prices are annoying people, people are arguing against their primary source of income, which is in the coalmining industry. There’s a blue-collar conservative vote out there who are saying ‘who represents us?’. “We’ve got all these people telling us that ‘my job as a coalminer, power worker, my job in an aluminium smelter, ­apparently I’m a bad bugger, and I’m not, I’m the reason this nation is the way it is’.”