Baby boom, nuclear, ‘space ports’ and new cities: Inside Nationals leader Matt Canavan’s ‘patriot agenda’

Sparking a baby boom, building “space ports” and new cities, investing in nuclear and scrapping net zero are among the “patriot agenda” Matt Canavan will argue for during his first National Press Club address as Nationals leader.

The outspoken Queensland Senator will reiterate his call for a “hyper-Australia” on Wednesday, as he outlines a five-point plan to create “Australia on steroids”.

Mr Canavan says Australia needs a “shake up” and needs to learn lessons of self-sufficiency from the global energy shock sparked from the Iran war.

In a wide-ranging zigger-filled speech, Mr Caravan will call for an “economic revival” through reigniting manufacturing, calibrating migration to critical sectors, investing in all forms of energy, building dams, roads, rail and ports.

“We need an Australia with more of everything: more factories, more dams, more vision, more cities, more homes and more babies,” a draft of his speech states.

“I like to call it a Hyper Australia but whatever you like to call it my agenda is an Australia on steroids.”

Much of his address will focus on creating the right settings for Australians to have more children, including making housing more affordable and embracing work from home.

He will argue that building new cities will allow families to have bigger, family-friendly backyards.

“There is no doubt that delayed home ownership and smaller housing is one reason our birth rate has collapsed below 1.5 babies per woman,” he argues.

“Income splitting or giving families more choice over how they receive family support could help close that gap.

“The maths on low birth rates is brutal. By the end of the century there could be just 11 million Australians descended from those alive today. We will have many more people, but most will have come from somewhere else.”

Mr Canavan will highlight the increase in foreign students and claim that Aussie pupils no longer feel welcome on campuses.

He will also hit out at the “coddled, comfortable and second-rate political class” led by the Prime Minister as “chief cheerleader of this economic cul-de-sac”.

Mr Canavan will call to “restore sovereign capability and unleash energy abundance” and argue against Labor’s “absurd net zero agenda” and “ridiculous bans on fracking, nuclear and coal power”.

“In a more uncertain global environment, we need to use the resources we have been blessed with to take care of ourselves, not become lazily reliant on others producing the goods for us,” he will argue.

“We have the third-highest amount of land per person – we should not have a housing crisis.

“Australia has the second-highest energy resources per person in the world – we should not have an energy crisis.”

But his blame for a “dependent state” is not just on the “weak leadership in Canberra”, he will also hit out at the “insipid and cowardly corporate sector” too.

“Most of our leaders grew up in the era of the Reagan-Thatcher revolution. Like ageing hippies, they desperately want to return to the elixir of their youth by performing one more economic Woodstock.

“A microwaved Milton Friedman is not going to solve our economic woes – and it is certainly not going to calm the rightful rage of the Australian people at their political leaders’ incompetence in trashing the promise of the luckiest country in the world.”