"I wish our nation was going like Tamworth," Barnaby Joyce said at the Tamworth Business Chamber's State of the Nation Leadership Forum.

"Tamworth, whose motto is industry, and who's proactive about making sure we support business and get business growing," Mr Joyce said, but it was a lack of water and expensive electricity that was holding Tamworth back.

"We cannot attract businesses because we can't supply them with those crucial ingredients," he said.

Mr Joyce decried expensive " intermittent power " brought on, he claimed, by the rise of the "wondrous fairy power" of renewables, but was keen to point out that the Liberals have officially dropped Net Zero climate targets.

"I'll be happy to say that the Liberals are out of Net Zero - now that wasn't too hard for me, was it?" Mr Joy

See Full Page