E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY, 1 JUNE 2026
Topics: ONE NATION
NATALIE BARR: For their take, let's bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce. Morning to both of you. Tanya, these polls have had One Nation closing in on you for a while, but now they have officially overtaken you. Does that worry your government?
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES, TANYA PLIBERSEK: Oh, of course we're interested in polls, but they don't drive us. What we're concerned to do is understand that people are feeling the pressure and we are all about reducing that pressure. We're about higher wages, lower taxes, a way better health system, investment in education. And we know that people have been feeling the pressure, that's why we've got about $2,800 of tax cuts coming. It's why we support higher wages. I think if Pauline Hanson wants to be Prime Minister, as she said in that interview yesterday, it's time for One Nation to start talking about how they would deliver some of these things. Because every opportunity they've had, they've actually voted against things that would make it easier, make life easier for Australians. And just yesterday, in the same interview where she was saying she wants to be Prime Minister, Pauline Hanson was saying that Australians are paid too much and they should be easier to sack. So, if they want to be taken seriously as a party, maybe they should tell us how they're going to do what we've done. Bring down the price of medicines, make sure there's more bulk billing clinics right across Australia, make sure that young Australians can get a TAFE education or an affordable university education, and most of all, how they can afford a home of their own one day.
BARR: Barnaby, we know polling isn't always right. Some people say this is a protest vote. It's pretty clear. We've had quite a few polls. They've been increasing. Is Pauline Hanson going to be the next Prime Minister?
BARNABY JOYCE: Never get ahead of ourselves, that'd be hubris. It's an incredible honour. It's an indicator, not a vote. I'd like to thank Tanya for the talking points, which we get every Monday morning. But the issue is that people are suffering from the cost of living because of the insane desire to change the weather via climate policy, the further socialisation of our land by incremental environmental laws. The fact that people can't afford a house and making it even more difficult, we'll see that, we'll see that shake out as it goes along. These policies are ridiculous. We haven't really done anything any major infrastructure the nation can be proud of, no dams, no freight rail. We just get a litany of basically talking points and then the continual sort of left wing socialisation of both our economics and our property. And at the same time the debt, to be quite frank, under both governments keeps going through the roof. In a time we should be coming as strong as possible as quickly as possible with the sort of fracturous nation of politics in South-east Asia where we live, we don't get a sense that either government is ready and prepared to protect us. The list can go on. Changing the social structure, the sort of naive belief in bringing people hell west and crooked and they all will get along swimmingly in Australia, everything will be fine, people are over that, almost the embarrassment of the Judeo-Christian basis of Australia, people are sick of that. I know these things because when you give the speeches it's where people cheer, it's where the public is. And it's not One Nation that's changed, it's the Australian public that's changed, and they've changed in waves. Not an aberration. It's real. And politics has changed in Australia.
BARR: Tanya, in this latest poll, 63%-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Hang on Nat-
BARR: -of the population is saying the country's heading in the wrong direction. A lot of these polls, the last few are since the budget. Tanya, would you agree this morning that your budget's tanked?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well Nat, just pause for a second. What Barnaby did just then is what One Nation always does. There's a long list of things that he complains about-
JOYCE: Okay, we're going to get rid of the climate change department-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: He never says what would One Nation do-
JOYCE: -and get rid of most your budget. Your budget's hopeless.
BARR: Hang on, Barnaby-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You’re going to get rid of a department and that’s going to fix the country?
BARR: Let's just let Tanya speak, please. Tanya?
JOYCE: The budget's hopeless. The budget's a disaster.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: This is really typical, really typical of One Nation.
JOYCE: [inaudible]
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You get a long list of complaints and no solutions.
BARR: Hang on Barnaby, just let Tanya speak. Then you'll have a turn.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: You get a long list of complaints and no solutions. When you look at how they vote, every single time One Nation votes to make life harder for people. They vote for lower wages, they vote for less rights at work. They voted against electricity bill relief, they voted against all the cost of living measures that we've offered as a government. And look at Barnaby's own electorate, right? 2,500 people have got into a home of their own with Labor's 5% deposit housing policy. What's Barnaby's housing policy? Look at Barnaby's health services, he's got a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, more than 30,000 people seen there and clinics that fully bulk bill have gone from 22 to 33 in his own electorate. Fully bulk billed clinics because of our policies. What has he done to assist that? What would he do to make Medicare stronger? We've made medicines cheaper in his electorate.
BARR: Okay-
JOYCE: [inaudible] very long interview if you want me to give-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Two new leukaemia medicines. Two new leukaemia medicines-
JOYCE: Here you go, the talking points.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -listed today. Absolutely life saving. What would Barnaby, well Barnaby, you keep saying that, how about some talking points from you about what you would-
JOYCE: Just email us, just email the talking points. Email the talking points.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -do to make the country better.
JOYCE: I'm trying to tell you but I don't get much of a chance.
BARR: Okay, Barnaby, in your answer can you address this? Because it's being brought up this morning your boss Pauline Hanson is under fire for not showing up to work enough. The Australian newspaper is reporting that they've crunched the numbers. She apparently missed 88% of Senate estimate hearing days. That's in the last 10 years. She's also missed 12 days of Senate sittings since the last election, including a week because of a suspension for wearing the burqa. Do you think someone who's paid more than $300,000 a year should be missing that much work?
JOYCE: Okay, I'll get to that. First thing is we'll get rid of the climate change department. We'll get rid of climate policy so that we can actually open up the industrialisation, re-industrialisation of Australia. We'll build coal fired power stations again because we're not embarrassed about using coal, seeing we've got one of the greatest coal reserves in the world yet we don't want to use it. We'll remove the legislation so people can build nuclear power plants, whether they want to is up to them but they can. We will have the policy to get doctors out to hospitals because you talked the Urgent Care Clinic. Yes, we have, at times it's a bit hard to get to, to be quite frank, but we have other hospitals without doctors. It's a very new, a very new concept for Australia, hospitals without doctors. We’d make sure that we'd bin your budget because your budget is a disaster. It's not actually going to help people get into a home. It's going to push rentals out, people who rent out onto the street. Even one factor of it, you've got that you don't get capital gains tax free for housing blocks on 5 acres because it's got to be 2 hectares which is 2.471 which is less than 5 acres. Out here, where to be quite frank-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It’s just another list of whinges.
JOYCE: -there are a lot of people that do it really tough. Their house is on a five acre block. So, all of a sudden you've decided that they're going to be poorer. That's your solution to them. And going back to Pauline-
BARR: On the working days? To finish up, yes Barnaby.
JOYCE: I think it's really important people understand that the committees are chaired by either Labor or the Coalition. One Nation doesn't get to chair committees and so it's obviously, they get swayed to what they want to do. And there are times were for One Nation they sit in there and it's just gobbled up by the government giving the talking points as we hear every Monday morning here, the talking points and the Coalition that really, really struggles and they're sort of left with the crumbs left over. As a leader of the party, it's not unusual that Pauline gets asked to go to a range of things, as does the leader of the Labor Party, as does the leader of the Liberal Party. And Pauline is the leader of the most popular polling party in Australia. She's going to get asked to a lot of issues.
BARR: Okay, that, there you go, that’s the answer to that.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We turn up to parliament though.
BARR: Okay.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Our leaders turn up to parliament.
JOYCE: Okay, back to your talking points.
BARR: Well, that's the answer to-
JOYCE: Talking points, Tanya.
BARR: -to that question. Thank you very much. I think you both had your say on that. We'll see you next week.
ENDS
