THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY 13 OCTOBER 2025

Topics: Lidia Thorpe; Middle East conflict; Power prices.

NATALIE BARR: Let’s bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Good morning.

BARNABY JOYCE: Good morning.

BARR: Tanya, the Opposition was very quick to oppose these comments. The government hasn't condemned that speech. What's your response this morning?

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Well, of course what Lidia Thorpe has said is absolutely irresponsible. We just don't want to give it extra airtime. I mean, what we know for sure is that Australians want to see peace in the Middle East. We're holding our breaths. We hope the hostages are returned tonight as they're supposed to be. We want to see aid back into Gaza and the rebuilding of Gaza. We want to see peace in the Middle East. We certainly don't want to import that hostility and conflict here to Australia. And we don't want to give people like Lidia Thorpe any airtime at all.

BARR: Yeah, look, I totally understand that because this is completely inflammatory. But when you have a senator saying she will burn down Parliament House, is there anything we should be-

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, it’s appalling. It's appalling.

BARR: It's appalling. Everyone agrees with that. But is there any step further than that? Can you censure her? Can you get her in trouble somehow?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, that's a matter to be decided down the track. But truly the last thing I want to be doing is promoting her or giving her the attention she so desperately craves. We need to focus on what we can do here in Australia. That's support a two-state solution, that’s support whatever we can do to bring and assure peace in the Middle East. And the truth is we are a relatively small player in all of this. The most important thing we can do here in Australia domestically is treat each other with respect. Yes, people have a right to peaceful protest. Of course they do. We are a democracy. But it has to be peaceful and it has to be lawful. And when people make suggestions like this that would encourage violence, we need to say that's not on here, it's not acceptable. But let's not promote them, let's not give them more attention than they deserve.

BARR: Yeah, and look, there will be people who will agree with you this morning. Barnaby, because she said things that were so inflammatory, do we put her in a vacuum and not give her airtime, not sort of concentrate on her, or do we go further?

JOYCE: Well, Nat, if she hadn't got airtime, but she obviously has, so it demands a response and it demands a strong response of condemnation. Ms. Thorpe, Senator Thorpe seems to be turning into a bit of a pyromaniac. Remember she had a crack at lighting fire to the Old Parliament House door and now she's talking about if you- to the river, to the sea, which has got nothing to do about peace. That's to wipe out the Jewish people from Israel. Now it's, it's basically over. We've got Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who's the leader of Egypt, and President Trump and the Arab nations all agree and the Europeans are all going to meet them in the Sinai. So, what are they protesting about? It shows that it's not so much about what's happening in Gaza, it’s a lot about getting rid of Jewish people by the sounds of things. And it's about, you know, we don't like the Jews and that's, that itself demands a comment and it should, it demands a response. And of course in the Senate you can move a motion condemning what she's done and be interesting to see whether the Labor Party support it. I presume that's precisely what's going to happen.

BARR: Well, yeah, it’ll be interesting. The Jewish Council has said she has no connection to the land, its history or its conflict. But she's up there in that speech saying justice for our people, so we'll see what happens today. Finally, a new report from the Grattan Institute has revealed that our energy bills are set to be slashed in half by 2050. That's due to our emissions reductions goal and driven by a growing uptake in electric vehicles, solar panels and electric stoves. Tanya, half price energy bills sound good. That's a lot of years to wait, 25 years. Think that's too long?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we know that renewable energy is the cheapest form of new energy and that's why we're absolutely committed. I mean, you see that more than 80,000 people have taken up the opportunity to put batteries on their homes, if they've got solar panels on the roof, that's going to save them thousands of dollars once those batteries are installed. And with the discount from the government, we see that right across our energy market. Renewables are the cheapest for of new energy.

BARR: Barnaby, you're obviously shaking your head. This is the Grattan Institute. Apparently, it's not left or right. They're saying it's going to happen.

JOYCE: Oh, that's garbage. It's the cheer squad for the intermittent power sector. Alison Reeves, who's one of the authors of this back in 2019 wrote a report "The National Hydrogen Strategy". By 2025, she's writing another report, another, in the paper how it was all wrong. And now we've got this fantasy that somehow power prices are going to, or energy prices will go down. They got one thing right. We will be using less industrial energy because we won't have industry. You've got to ground truth this garbage. Is the power price going down with the more intermittence we're getting or going up? It's going up. It's not cheap. And the only reason you're getting rooftop solar is they're subsidising the damn stuff with taxpayers money. I mean you can subsidise anything you like and I suppose people are going to go to use it.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, what's your power plan, Barnaby?

JOYCE: My power plan is to go back to baseload power such as nuclear, such as coal. That's where you've got to go.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So you'll spend $600 billion on nuclear?

JOYCE: That's where Queensland's going. That's what worked, Tanya. That's what gave us cheap power. Where you are, it's mythical. And this idea that in 2050 the person who wrote the hydrogen plan based in 2019 to predict what happens in 2050 is patently absurd.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: But the reason power is intermittent is because 50-year-old coal-fired power stations keep closing down. They keep breaking down [inaudible].

BARR: Barnaby, they can't afford to keep coal open, and people didn't like the nuclear. Barnaby, they voted against it. You had your go.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: They voted against it.

JOYCE: We went to the last election also agreeing, the Coalition went to the last election and the election before agreeing with Net Zero. It doesn't work.

BARR: You also went with a nuclear plan and Australia said no.

JOYCE: And what we've got right now is hurting us. It's de-industrialising us. It's making us weaker into the face of China which is breathing down our neck and more and more so every day. And why we, why do we want to-

BARR: Okay, well. You go talk to Susan and come up with a better plan because everyone wants cheaper power.

JOYCE: I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of people talking about the energy issue and as you know I'm moving the private members bill to get rid of Net Zero.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You don't have a plan at all yet, Barnaby. That's the point.

JOYCE: Well, your plan is not working Tanya.

BARR: You know what [inaudible]

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: [inaudible] you went to the election with nuclear, they didn’t want it [inaudible].

BARR: Australians want some kind of plan, and they want cheaper energy. So, we'll leave it there because look at the time we've got to go.

JOYCE: [inaudible] It's a really bad one.

BARR: See you next week. Here’s Shirvo.

ENDS