E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2025
TOPICS: COALITION CHAOS; NET ZERO; POWER PRICES.
NATALIE BARR: For their take, let's bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and outgoing Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Good morning to you. Barnaby, so look, it's all happening in the Libs, front page of this morning's paper. Oops. There we go. Andrew Hastie's people seem to be talking about the numbers on the front page. We have Angus Taylor on the weekend talking about his favourite movie being Devil Wears Prada in a soft piece in the News Limited Press. Does this mean that Sussan Ley's leadership is terminal and the guys are circling?
BARNABY JOYCE: Yeah well, obviously it does look like people are positioning themselves and I wouldn't be telling you the truth otherwise, would I? But what I would also say, it's a 1500 metre race. Be really careful where you position yourself on the first lap. It's- no one really cares. The finish line is two and a half years away and that's where you've got to be positioning yourself. Let things filter through. There's a lot of things that are going to change between now and the election day and, you know, getting out of the net zero, yep, that was very, very important. That whole cost of living debate will continue on and issues pertinent to whether more needs to be done will start to come to the fore. People will still have issues with intermittent power precincts of wind towers and solar panels and transmission lines and issues pertinent to, you know, the cost of living and whether we can keep industry in Australia. This debate has only just started. It's got a long way to go.
BARR: Barnaby, do you feel- you started all this, threatening to leave, basically. Do you feel like you're running the Libs and the Nationals right now?
JOYCE: We're having an effect. I say we because it's not just me. There's obviously, you know, the whole political dynamic works like this. Ultimately, at the start, One Nation had a position against net zero and against Paris. And then Matt Canavan's been working for a very long while to try and do something for our nation. We moved the private members' bill. Then the polling came out which showed a massive swing to One Nation. Then panic set in. Then the Nationals changed their position, Liberals have changed their position. But what's that about? That's about politics. That's how it works. And if you're in pol-, you know, if you're in politics, you've got to play politics. And I played my part, but I wouldn't be so bold as to say I did it.
BARR: Okay. Tanya, do you think people, with all this talk about Net Zero and the climate and people looking at their power bills, do you think people may start to listen and think, well, hang on, how fast are the renewables cutting through?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Well, Nat, I think the first thing to say is the chaos inside the Liberal Party is just another demonstration that they're focused on themselves and fighting one another while the government's focused on delivering for Australians. And power prices is obviously one of those things. We're in the middle of a really important transition. Wholesale power prices are coming down, the rollout's happening, it's happening quickly and effectively. But it's not just power prices. We're reducing prices: childcare, healthcare, medicines, free TAFE. There's a range of things that we're doing to help Australians day to day. That's 100 per cent our focus.
JOYCE: I think there's something to be added to that, though. Wholesale prices might be coming down from a very high level, but the experience prices that people are paying are still through the roof. And I think what the Coalition has to do now is reassess what are the policies that sit behind power prices that people can't afford. And the greatest assessment of power prices has been done recently, that would be by Rio Tinto, who, in their decision of what they did with Tomago, said, there's no way we'd stay in Australia, that their power policy is off its head. We're leaving.
BARR: Ok, let's move on to something else.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: But here's just another thing here. At least $450 that people have got in rebates were opposed by the Liberals and Nationals. So, when they talk about being concerned about people's hip pocket and power prices, why did they vote against relief in the Parliament?
JOYCE: Because what you're doing is- because the price still went up, Tanya, even after that rebate. You're just handing back taxpayers the taxpayers’ money, going, here's the money we're talking about.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We want to help people; you want to block it.
JOYCE: Here's the money we take off you. Here's the money, we're giving you our own money back.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We want to help people; you want to block it.
JOYCE: And we're claiming responsibility for handing you back your own money. That's not structurally fixing the energy system, you're structurally destroying the energy system.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So, we want to help people today and we want to build our system-
JOYCE: Well, stop [inaudible].
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -for the future. That's what we're doing. And you're just getting in the way of power.
JOYCE: Stop the intermittent power swindle. Stop putting out intermittent power.
BARR: And Tanya, many people would say that's still just a band aid. We still need to get the actual prices down and-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's immediate help-
BARR: It is.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: and then we need to change our system.
BARR: Exactly.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And that's why we're investing in our system-
JOYCE: It's [inaudible], you’re destroying our system.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -because we all know the 4 million people who've got solar on the roof know that solar's cheaper. 125,000 people with batteries on have-
JOYCE: [inaudible]
BARR: Exactly. It's just how long the system will take to cut in and affect people's bills. And that is the hard thing I think some people are understanding.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It would be a lot faster, Nat. It would have been a lot faster if we'd had some action over the 10 years that the Liberals and Nationals-
JOYCE: No, no, no. What you're doing-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -were in government, they were told that 24 coal fired power stations were closing. They did nothing.
JOYCE: You're the government. You are the government.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: If they wanted to build new coal, they should have started it then. If they wanted to build nuclear, they should have started it then.
JOYCE: You're the government. You are the government.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We're investing in- yeah, we are and you were just focused on yourselves, and you're not focused on Australians.
JOYCE: No you're destroying it [inaudible].
BARR: Ok, well now Barnaby, you're doing coal, gas, renewables, batteries. You're doing everything. You're going to bring down the prices and you're going to bring down the emissions. So, it'll be interesting to see the costings of all that and the timing from the Coalition as well. We'll have to leave it. All right.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, and when, and where, and how much.
JOYCE: [inaudible] talking about power all day.
BARR: Exactly, we'll be asking, don't worry. But not right now because we're going to go to the news. Thank you very much. See you next week, here’s Shirvo.
ENDS
