Barnaby’s wild claim shut down on air

The former deputy prime minister appeared on the morning show from a dreary looking Danglemah, battling to keep himself dry as it rained cats and dogs.

“Great weather for ducks, trout, worms, and I’m going to get the hell out of here as soon as you are finished,” he joked.

But it was a comment in response to a question about soft plastic recycling that raised the Sunrise host’s eyebrows.

“We’ve solved global warming, we’ve solved the drought, we’ve obviously fixed that problem,” Mr Joyce said, looking around at the downpour.

“Not really,” Ms Barr deadpanned in response.

“Because global warming actually creates rain, but we will talk about that next week.”

Her response was met with an audible groan from Mr Joyce.

Ms Barr had asked the Nationals MP why Australia had only been recycling 16 per cent of plastics over the past four years.

He replied by insisting you can’t talk about recycling without talking about coal-fired power stations and nuclear energy.

“One of the things about it, of course, is (that it) costs money to recycle. Like all manufacturing … requires energy, requires power,” Mr Joyce said.

“If we keep devoiding (sic) our nation of the capacity to produce baseload power, shutting down coal fired power stations, not wanting to talk about nuclear power … then you’re not going to have manufacturing and means you’re not gonna have recycling.

“You just gotta be a realist. Gotta get cheaper energy.”

His comments come after the sensational collapse of Australia’s largest soft plastic recycling scheme was revealed last week amid revelations of secret stockpiling.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek, who appeared on the panel alongside Mr Joyce, said it was “crazy” that the whole system has been “thrown out of whack”.

“We need to rebuild and build new recycling facilities,” she said.

“The plastic that you get from recycling can be made into new stuff …. We’ve got to make sure we have the recycling facilities that allow that to happen.”