Barnaby’s delusional huffing and puffing over Net Zero is once again front and centre, starting with the Murdoch gutter press (naturally) and culminating with ABC’s 7.30, writes managing editor Michelle Pini.
NEVER has it been clearer that the lunatics have taken over the Coalition HQ asylum.
Despite a walloping in May, which saw only 43 seats for the Lib/Nats Opposition to Labor’s 94, followed by an ugly and very public break-up, several outspoken Nats remain determined to stick to the old playbook. That’s the one where they bury their hands in the sand while the oceans rise, extreme weather events overpower us all, and the end of the world is but a few more coal mines and fracking expeditions away.
This week, former Deputy Prime Minister and current Nationals backbencher, Barnaby “Planter-Box” Joyce, has reared his climate-denying head once again with the following:
“The idea that, at this stage, we have put the focus of our nation on a lunatic crusade of Net Zero is treacherous to the very security of Australia.”
It’s tempting to assume that, given the world knows what it now knows, Barnaby’s huffing and puffing – incidentally supported by another former Nats Leader, Michael McCormack – is at best a minor and irrelevant distraction from the issues the world faces, not least of all regarding the climate emergency.
But Barnaby – once dubbed “Australia’s best retail politician” by fellow climate-denier former PM Tony Abbott – has once again enjoyed being front and centre of every mainstream news outlet this week, starting with the Murdoch gutter press (naturally) and culminating with ABC’s 7.30.
To her credit, 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson did her best to finish a question or two, while Joyce talked over her and bullied his way through the "interview" without giving one straight answer. Nonetheless, Ferguson persisted, asking if, since he was leader of the Nats when the Coalition agreed to Net Zero and given that he knows his latest bill to axe it will never get through parliament, is he now just being an “agent of chaos” to overthrow Nats Leader David Littleproud?
Said Barnaby:
“This is nothing to do with David, this is about Net Zero.”
Apparently, he “never agreed to it” and thinks we need to dump Net Zero because people in regional Australia are “beside themselves”.
Joyce (with new pal McCormack) is putting forward a private members' bill to repeal Net Zero. He also wants the word “farm” to be removed from wind and solar projects because it’s "disrespectful" to farmers and says he “never agreed” to the Net Zero deal.
Back in 2016, however, Joyce said about a wind farm in his own electorate:
White Rock Wind Farm will put New England on the map as a national leader in renewable energy production and drive local jobs and economic activity through the construction phase…
Clean energy is essential to meet our emissions reduction targets.
Unsurprisingly, everything Barnaby has said about Net Zero in his latest media assault is deliberate disinformation. Barnaby is only doing what he does best: getting publicity, spreading misinformation and fuelling division.
Why? Because he hopes this will destabilise the Nats long enough to catapult him back into the leadership and because Barnaby has only ever answered to one mistress: Australia’s richest woman, mining magnate Gina Rinehart.
Thus, Joyce opined:
“[Net Zero] has no effect on climate change whatsoever.”
The most hilarious part was when Barnaby claimed that as an MP, “you just want to take the nation to a better place” and that he is “advocating for the powerless against the powerful”.
Sarah Ferguson, to her credit, managed a straight face.
Barnaby’s climate-denying runaway coal train happened in the same week the Climate Council released new analysis of the latest climate science, including that:
- global heating is now having significant economic and social costs for Australians, with hundreds of thousands of people affected; and
- unchecked climate change would cost Australia $4.2 trillion by 2070 and 8.8% of Australian properties will be uninsurable due to high exposure to climate disasters by 2100.
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said:
“Barnaby Joyce isn’t standing up for the bush, he’s selling it out. His smug front-page photo in The Australian today made me sick. If he had his way, we’d burn fossil fuels forever and blow past every climate threshold, to hell with our kids’ future.”
However, it was Barnaby and his fossil fuel backers who had the last laugh once, because as he said:
“Just the fact that you’ve got me on the show means that people care about this issue.”
Of course, people care about the inescapable issue of climate change, which is why it should be the CEO of the Climate Council speaking about Net Zero and not Barnaby, or McCormack, or any other ignorant, self-serving climate denialist or their mining industry backers.
Barnaby’s deliberate lies and disinformation should be completely ignored. It should not be given oxygen on every available platform – and certainly not on the national broadcaster – confusing and misleading people into thinking there might be “two sides” to climate change.
The scientific fact of climate change is not debatable any more than the scientific fact of gravity. When will the legacy media stop platforming these nutjobs?
Barnaby Joyce’s push to repeal Net Zero is disgraceful, delusional, and totally out of step with the Parliament and the country. Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie explains why. pic.twitter.com/6kX4VVC2Ze
— Climate Council (@climatecouncil) July 23, 2025
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