THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES
E&OE Transcript
TV INTERVIEW
Sunrise
MONDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2025
Topics: NATIONALS CHAOS; NET ZERO; POWER PRICES.
NATALIE BARR:Let's bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and outgoing Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Good morning to both of you. Tanya, I promise we will get to you, but first, Barnaby, we'll go to you. Are you staying with the Nats given they have now dumped net zero?
BARNABY JOYCE:Well, I'm going to make sure that I assess exactly what the process is. Obviously, you know, I don't want to rehash this. This is, sort of, my decision to make and I'll make it. I'm more interested in making sure that we have a look at exactly what's happening to power prices and have a look at exactly why people are so upset with the Coalition and what are the issues that will make them think that their loyalty deserves a vote, which they obviously haven't got at the moment. That's quite clear. I mean, you look at those numbers-
BARR: Isn’t this why you’re leaving though? You wanted net zero, the Nats have given you net zero. So, aren't you going to walk back in now?
JOYCE:Well, the issue is that we're still in the Paris Agreement, aren't we? And I have to actually go through with Matt Canavan this morning a lot of the issues pertinent to the Capacity Investment Scheme and in regional areas we're getting overrun by intermittent power transmission lines, solar panels, wind towers. That's the questions that are going to be asked of me Nat, and I want to know what the answers are.
BARR: Okay, so you've got a lot more demands before you leave for One Nation.
JOYCE:No, I've got a lot more to ask, Nat, and I'll do my job and ask.
BARR: Okay, where does this leave the coalition, Barnaby? We've now got Dave Sharma saying the Liberals need to reconsider their future with the Nationals. Is the marriage over?
JOYCE:It becomes really hard, Nat, because you look at Queensland, where the LNP is, what are you going to do? Have two conferences? You can't sort of be two different parties down here and then one party again up there. Or you're going to have one room where people are aligned with the Nats and another room where people are aligned with the Liberals and another one where they don't want to be either in the LNP or maybe they will come down here and just sit as the LNP and not as Liberals or Nats. There's a whole range of combinations and permutations and confusions that are around this beyond the comments that are in the paper. And I think people are going to come across them and think about them in the coming days.
BARR:Is the Coalition over?
JOYCE:Well, I don't know. That's above my pay grade. But what I've seen in the past, I've argued against splitting the Coalition because of precisely this. When there was an amalgamation of the parties in Queensland to the LNP, it made, that scenario might sound good on paper, but when you come to an election, you've got to remember in Queensland you're a division of the Liberal Party and they have blue how to vote cards and it's just not going to work out the way you think it's going to work out.
BARR:Well, you only split up, what, a few weeks ago, it seems, and now you're on the verge of it again. It sounds like it.
JOYCE: I didn't advocate for them splitting up there, Nat.
BARR: But they did, sounds like you can't agree. Tanya, let's talk about power because when everyone's arguing about this on the other side of politics, this is what is affecting people. Australians are reasonable people, they want to protect the planet. But they are looking at those power bills every quarter. They are seeing electricity grow by many percent. They are wondering when these cheaper renewables are going to kick in. When?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Well, first of all Nat, the reason that around 4 million households have put solar on the roof and now well over 100,000 households have put in a battery in just the last couple of months is because they know that renewables are cheaper. You're right. They're not all doing it because they're raving greenies. They're doing it because they've worked out renewables are cheaper. And now for two months in a row, we've had around 50% of our power in the east coast grid has been renewable energy. That's seen wholesale prices come down because new renewables are much cheaper than any other new source of electricity. Of course it takes a while for this transition to happen. I keep reminding you that under the previous government they were told 24 coal fired –
JOYCE: They’re not cheaper, they’re not cheaper.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: - 24 coal fired power stations were closing and they did nothing. We are doing the work to transition our energy.
BARR: Yep. Tanya, Tanya, what about-
JOYCE: [inaudible]
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: [inaudible] – we are doing the work now to transition our energy.
JOYCE: [inaudible] the price of power is going through the roof, Tanya.
BARR: Okay.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And can I also say this, can I also say this about Barnaby-
JOYCE: [inaudible] just doesn’t work.
BARR: Hang on. What if you can't put solar on your roof?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It’s such nonsense. Can I say this-
BARR: What if you're in a unit? What if you can't put it on your roof? It's not going to work. What do those people do?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, that's why we're making sure that we transition our grid as well. Well, wholesale power prices are coming down and I'll tell you this about the farmers-
BARR: They’re not. Australians are sitting out there saying my power price is not going down.
JOYCE: [inaudible] they’re going through the roof.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, wholesale prices are coming down and that will translate to retail prices.
BARR: And when will that be?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well Barnaby says he cares about, Barnaby says he cares about – oh my goodness.
BARR: When will power prices go down for people who haven't got solar on their roof, who cannot put it on their roof? When are power prices going to come down? When are the renewables kicking in?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, the reason we're doing all of this work is so that can happen as quickly as possible. And Barnaby says he cares about farmers. You know a farmer can get $40,000 for one wind turbine-
JOYCE: [inaudible] you’ve been there for four years with prices going through the roof [inaudible].
BARR: Tanya, when?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Barnaby, I listen to you. A farmer can get $40,000 for one turbine on their land. Why does Barnaby Joyce want to stop farmers earning money for renewable energy on their land?
BARR: Okay, just, can we go back to when power prices are going down?
JOYCE: [inaudible] who pull it down? It's going to cost over a million dollars to pull it down. He'll have negative equity on his place and in the meantime the pensioner is paying through the teeth and being put out of a house. That's why we don't want them going up.
BARR: There are a lot of issues here, Tanya, when are power price is coming down-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well you don’t, but but there's plenty of people who do.
BARR: Tanya?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we want to see them come down as quickly as possible Nat-
BARR: Well yeah. But is it years away?
MINISTER PLIBESEK: -and that's why we've provided around $750. We've provided around $750 to every household in Australia to bring down their power bills.
JOYCE: It’s a debacle. It’s a power debacle.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: - and the states and territories have helped with that. We want to see power prices down as quickly as possible. Wholesale prices are coming down, retail prices will follow.
JOYCE: You've been there for four years. They’ve been going through the roof and they’re going to continue going through the roof.
BARR: So are we talking next year?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We inherited an absolute mess from you, Barnaby.
JOYCE: [inaudible] that's ancient history.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: [inaudible] it takes a while to change the energy grid.
BARR: She’s right Barnaby, they did, but they're still going up. So, Tanya, are we talking next year? When, when are power prices going to come down?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we want to see them come down as quickly as possible-
BARR: Well yeah, we all want them to come, but when?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: - which is exactly why we’re making this investment, and we've seen for the last two months renewables around half of our grid in the east coast-
BARR: Which is great-
JOYCE: And that’s worked out well for everyone hasn’t it?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -putting downward pressure on power prices all the time.
BARR: Okay, well.
JOYCE: [inaudible] through the roof, put power prices through the roof.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, your solution Barnaby is to do nothing, or to use taxpayers money to build the most expensive form of power-
JOYCE: Well, well looking at yours, it's smashed the grid, put people into poverty-
MINISTER PLIBEREK: -on the planet.
JOYCE: -driving Tomago, our industrial base is just waving goodbye to us. Bye-bye Tomago. Bye-bye [inaudible].
BARR: Okay, now we’ve also, now we’ve also got the problem where the Nationals have just done a study from their research centre saying, you know, coal is cheaper. The CSIRO have done a study-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, that will be independent.
BARR: -saying renewables is cheaper. In the middle, we are sitting here and power prices are going up. So, I don't know clear as mud.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Nat, the National Party have done their own research saying that what they want to do is going to be good for the country. I don’t think people are buying it.
JOYCE: Well, we had a look at your research when it talks about $275 reduction in our power bill. Remember that little bit of research gave us Tanya? The $275 reduction in our power bill. That worked out well, didn't it? Great research you got there.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Every household has received around $750 of energy bill relief from the government-
BARR: And yet they’re still going up
JOYCE: [inaudible]
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And we’ll keep working on this to bring down prices
JOYCE: [inaudible] that were taxpayer subsidies paid to taxpayers. It's crazy. This whole thing is crazy.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Barnaby, you're going to have to learn a little bit of self-control if you want to be able to discuss things sensibly.
JOYCE: I am.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You need to learn a bit of self-control.
JOYCE: Ooh you’re getting a bit angry there.
BARR: I think that's a good place to leave it.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, no, I’m not angry.
BARR: On that note, thank you very much. We've got to head to the news. Thank you. We'll see you next week.
ENDS
