Barnaby on ABC PM yesterday:
One of the most basic necessities of life, the greatest reflection of our standard of living, is the price of power.
I remember that a very salient time for me was having a discussion with my mother-in-law, and talking about the carbon price, and her quietly sitting back and in sort of a disdainful way, which I think reflects the disgust held by so many in the community.
She said look, you know, in winter, in the New England, when she’s working on Meals and Wheels, it’s at times it’s very easy to find out where the pensioner is, because you will find them in bed because that is the only place they can afford to stay warm.
So they’re not there because they’re sick, they’re there because they’re cold, and I find that disgusting that would be happening in my nation now. We’re the nation that supplies coal to the world, yet we can’t afford to look after our own.
Another reflection on that is the people of South Korea manage to deliver power to their people, at 30 per cent cheaper than what we can deliver it to ours, yet they’re doing it with our coal after a journey of, I suppose, around about 10,000 kilometres.
So. We merrily sell our coal to the world, for them to use in their coal-fired power stations. But we introduce a big new tax on our own coal-fired power stations. So that our already-overpriced electricity, will become even more overpriced … by (minority) government decree.
(Oh yes, and we refuse to consider nuclear. The only viable, base-load power alternative to coal. But, we merrily keep selling our uranium to the world, for their nuclear power stations).
#@^&%$!?!
Barnaby Is Right 
Until I started looking into the way money works in Australia I supported the mining super tax. The claims that it would make some operations unprofitable was only ever a short term analysis. Eventually these operations would become profitable again because, as we deplete global resources, the price for these items would increase…I thought of it as kind of like a forced savings plan.
However, after coming to the realisation that the primary purpose of tax is to service the debt created through a staggeringly stupid decision by our elected officials, I would recommend that nobody pay income tax at all until our politicians fix this horrible wrong inflicted on the Australian people.
This may seem drastic but, unlike yourself, the RBA is not accountable to the people of Australia. How else can we force our pollies to right this wrong?
Hi Daryl, thanks for the comments. Please note that this is not the Senator’s website – it is only private commentary. Barnaby’s official website is here.
Oh right – I thought the name seemed somewhat less than self affacing but you know politicians…they’re anything but shrinking violets.
This is likely because of transmission loss. Power is lost when transmitted over power-lines due to resistance, the longer the distances the more loss. South Korea would fit inside VIC.
I’m a first-time visitor to this webpage and I’m not surprised that Daryl thought the author was Barnaby.
I think you would do the visitors to your webpage a service if you were to state clearly that the “I” that one reads in articles is not Barnaby Joyce.
Your “About” page is too hard to find.
Otherwise, an informative read. I’ll be back…
Major site update complete. Hopefully friendlier, and less room for confusion. Like it?