E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY, 9 FEBRUARY 2026
TOPICS: COALITION CHAOS; NEWSPOLL; ENERGY PRICES.
NATALIE BARR: Let's bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce. Good morning to both of you. Barnaby, another jump for you and One Nation, another low for the Coalition. Do you think this will be the trigger for Angus Taylor to challenge Sussan Ley?
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, I'll leave that up to them, obviously. I watched the marriage again yesterday. I noted that one of the participants in the marriage didn't even think it was warranted a tie or a coat. They've got to do something, but I'll leave that up to them. It's, it's actually, it's a little bit sad, to be quite frank. And for our part, well, I'm down in Horsham, Horsham Hotel here. And we're just going to continue doing our job and making sure that we present ourselves to the Australian people. We understand the polls are an indicator. They're not a fact, and we'll do our very best job to make sure the Australian people have a safe set of hands to vote for.
BARR: Tanya, politics, we know, is a very tough game, particularly for women. What's your message for Sussan Ley in what could be her last week as the Liberal leader?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Well, we're really, as a government, not focused on ourselves and the chaos that you see in the Liberals and Nationals. We're focused on the Australian people and making sure that we help with the cost of living. But one thing I would say about the Liberals and Nationals is it's not good for democracy for this sort of chaos to continue. And, you know, in a sense, I don't really think they've given Sussan Ley a fair chance. You know that Angus Taylor was snapping at her heels at the time of their party election at the very beginning. He's never really let up. And you look at this poor polling, people say, oh, they're a mess, it's chaos, they've got poor polling. Well, Barnaby started it by leaving, and they've kept it going with the sort of chaos and speculation about leadership. And no wonder people say they're not going to vote Liberal or National while they're all fighting each other instead of focusing on the Australian people. But to cause the chaos and then use the chaos as an excuse to knock off their first woman leader, I mean, I think people will say that for what it is. It's pretty shallow and pretty cynical.
BARR: Are you part of the chaos, Barnaby?
JOYCE: I don't know. I was trying to work out how Tanya was going to stitch me into that and I'm still a bit flummoxed. No, I made a decision to join One Nation and it looks like the Australian people in their polling are making the same decision. And I don't take it for granted. I think that seeing that, Tanya can have a shot at me, and I'll have a shot at Tanya. Your polling is at 33 per cent in the Labor Party. That's actually also diabolical. And if 33 per cent is where you're happy, if only. You're only happy, if only a third of Australia thinks about giving you their number one choice then you have to understand that it's a terribly fibril and you can flip from a strong majority to a massive minority in the heartbeat of one election. You are not in a safe place at 33 per cent of the primary.
BARR: Tanya, are you happy with your poll?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Okay Barnaby. Well, just in response to Barnaby, he is saying he wants to be considered as a party of government. He wants to be considered as the alternate Prime Minister one day. You need to start, instead of just listing the things that you're complaining about-
JOYCE: I never said that.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Putting out some detailed and costed policies. Like there'll be- what, so, you don't want to be a party of government, you just want to be a party of protest?
JOYCE: You just said. I said that I wanted to be the Prime Minister and Tanya, it's quite [inaudible]. Rewind the tape. I didn't say that at all. But you asked about policies we've got policies. We want to build coal-fired power stations.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So, you don't want to be a party of government?
JOYCE: You always go back here. We're going to fix up the electricity mess.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: How much? How much will they cost?
BARR: Barnaby, hang on, could you answer Tanya’s question?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And where will they be?
BARR: Barnaby, could you answer Tanya's question? Are you a protest party?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: How much will they cost and where will they be?
JOYCE: I can't hear both of you. So, what was Tanya's question now? Because Tanya was talking at the top of you.
BARR: Tanya?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, how much will the coal-fired power stations cost and where will they be? Like it's not just saying a line. It's not just a slogan Barnaby.
JOYCE: Do you want me to answer? Do you want me to answer it Tanya? Or do you want to-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You actually have to have detailed policies. If you-
JOYCE: Tanya, I'm here to answer your question.
BARR: Okay, Barnaby.
JOYCE: Tanya, what we're going to do is we're going to get the money.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Go on then.
JOYCE: It's amazing, isn't it listeners? It's crazy. What we're going to do, listeners, is we're going to get the money that the Labor Party is squandering on the capital, capacity investment schemes, which they won't tell us about. Probably hundreds of billions of dollars that is going off to billionaires, to overseas billionaires, domestic billionaires putting a price of power through the roof. Another 25 per cent increase by the first of July. We're going to get that money and we're using that to refurbish and rebuild coal-fired power stations. Now that is, we will start with a platform of two and then we'll expand out from there. Now see, that is a policy and that's, we showed you where the money's coming from and where are we going to do it. Where they're already coal-fired power stations so we don't have to build the transmission lines, the swindle factories, the solar panels, the transmission lines. Get some, get some logic back into this and then track heavy industry back into Australia. There's a policy, ladies and gentlemen. The other one is windmills, solar panels and Tanya.
BARR: Okay, so Barnaby, you're saying you can refurbish the coal-fired power stations that are falling apart and we're, and they're just sort of, you know, getting a few more years out of. You're saying you can refurbish those.
JOYCE: You know Nat, that is exactly what the Labor Party is trying to do at the moment with Eraring. They're trying to keep the thing open because they've come to the conclusion that they can't have an electricity grid without baseload power.
BARR: Yes, we know that, but there's a difference between getting, between getting them just another few years out of them and refurbishing them. You say you've got, you can actually do that.
JOYCE: What you can do is you can take power stations to a supercritical section to get a lot more higher efficiency out of it. In many instances you get Liddell [inaudible] so, you just rebuild the whole power station. See where we are at the moment, Tanya and Nat, is we're basically just destroying our power grid. You can see that in the price, you can see that the reliability and you can see that in all our heavy industry which is just getting up and leaving or already left, it's a disaster. And the pensioners are suffering and the billionaires are clapping all the way to the bank because with the money the Australian people are giving them.
BARR: Okay, last word, Tanya. Is that viable?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I just think it's a joke. I mean, Barnaby should know that coal, new coal-fired power is the most expensive form, other than nuclear, of new energy.
JOYCE: It's not.
BARR: Barnaby, hang on a second.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's true, Barnaby, it's just, there is a bunch of evidence out there. The cheapest form of new electricity is cheaper, cleaner, renewable energy. We got up to 52 per cent of the power grid last year. Wholesale prices are coming down. We've got millions of homes out there with solar on the roof. They're not ideologues, they're not crazy greeny lefties, Barnaby. They've worked out that solar is cheaper and if you add a battery you can get your bills down to almost zero. Australians have worked it out.
JOYCE: If it's so cheap, Tanya, why do you have to subsidise it?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Cheaper, cleaner, renewable energy.
JOYCE: Why do you need a capacity investment scheme if it's so cheap?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Why are you talking about subsidising coal? If coal's so cheap? Why are you talking about subsidising coal if its so cheap?
JOYCE: But Tanya, you're subsidising it. You have a capacity investment scheme. Because it's not cheap and just it's factually crazy that power is-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You wanted to spend $600 billion on nuclear.
JOYCE: - denies the reality of your power bill. Have a look at your power bill, Tanya.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You wanted to spend $600 billion on nuclear and now you want to spend an unknown amount, you won't tell us how much on new coal-
JOYCE: Tanya, you want to tell us how much is in the capacity investment scheme.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -which is the most expensive form of new-
JOYCE: You deny the Australia Australian people the right to know how much you're spending in capacity investment scheme. You hide it from us, Tanya.
BARR: Well, the Australian people just know their power bills are going up and we can't work out why and we, it's really hard to work out a solution but thank you very much for putting both cases.
