New Nationals cabinet minister Matthew Canavan believes his old boss Barnaby Joyce’s “rock star” profile has given the party its best electoral opportunity since Doug Anthony was the leader in the 1970s.

Canavan, who has recently been promoted to cabinet as resources minister, said while the Nationals had suffered “peaks and troughs”, the party had the opportunity to build on its strong election performance using Joyce’s profile.

“We’ve got to work hard at it. I do think we have an opportunity in a leader in Barnaby Joyce who is a national superstar, to take those opportunities,” Canavan told Guardian Australia.



“That is perhaps something we haven’t had in a while and that’s no disrespect to Warren [Truss]. He did a great job, he built us up to 21 members in the partyroom, but Barnaby has got profile.



“Doug Anthony might have been the last one who had that kind of profile ... Barnaby is obviously a rock star in the bush but everyone knows him in the cities as well, and that is an opportunity for us.”

There is this idea we can shut down the coalmining industry and everyone will get a job installing solar panels

In a wide ranging interview with Guardian Australia, Canavan said he would:

champion the mining industry



Maintain his support for Coalition’s 2013 “one stop shop” policy to devolve environmental approval powers to the states



Maintain his opposition to tax deductability for environmental groups involved in political campaigning.

He also said he supported conservative third party organisations such as Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives.



Canavan began in politics advising Joyce after working as an economist for the Productivity Commission. Since he entered parliament as a senator in 2013, he has had a meteoric rise.

In February, he was promoted to the outer ministry as minister for northern Australia. Known as a conservative, he was well placed for a prime minister who was under pressure to promote younger members from the right. As a result, he added the resources portfolio, inside cabinet.

‘Strong role’ to highlight importance of mining

Canavan has been a loud supporter of the Adani Carmichael mine project, Australia’s largest coalmine, planned for north Queensland. The 36-year-old lives with his young family just a couple of hundred kilometres from the mine site.

Earlier this week he said while he accepted the warming impact of carbon dioxide, he questioned the certainty of the science and believed some interest groups were exaggerating the effects of climate change.



“I do see it as a strong role for the commonwealth minister to highlight the importance of mining to our country and coming from a coal mining district I have a unique ability to do that,” Canavan told Guardian.



“There are thousands of people where I live whose livelihoods depend on the industry in a real and direct way, their mortgages, their school fees are all paid by the fact they have a well paid job working in a mine.



Matthew Canavan is sworn in as minister for resources and northern Australia. Photograph: Andrew Taylor/AAP

“As we can see from the downturn we have had, there is no easy alternative for them to go and work in. If there is a downturn, there is this idea we can shut down the coalmining industry and everyone will get a job installing solar panels.”



This idea that we tried to develop the north and somehow it didn’t work is wrong

Canavan supports the Coalition’s moves to devolve the water trigger power to the states, in the so-called one stop shop, which were blocked in the Senate. While it was not related to the water trigger, Canavan said the fact that the Adani project took more than 1,900 days to approve by state and federal governments was “absurd”.

“Whether you support Adani or think it’s a terrible idea and you think it is going to destroy the planet, what country takes 1,900 days to say yes or no to a $16bn project?” he said.

The king of the north

Canavan is also in charge of the $5bn Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (Naif) which has just come into being on 1 July. The loan facility arose out of a white paper into northern Australia and he rejects suggestions that previous attempts to develop the north have failed.

“North Queensland is the biggest non-capital-city region of the country and we should be proud of it ... this idea that we tried to develop the north and somehow it didn’t work is wrong at least in north Queensland,” he said.



Eighty projects have been submitted to the Naif, including a clean energy project in north Queensland, which he says could be financed through the fund and could partner with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The proposals also include a fibre optic project in the north of Western Australia and a shiplift facility in Darwin.

Tax benefits for environmental groups

As a champion of the mining industry, Canavan combined with fellow conservatives such as former MP Andrew Nikolic to review the tax status for environmental groups.

The parliamentary review recommended a proportion of a group’s income would need to be spent on environmental remediation to qualify for charitable tax status. The government has yet to act on the report, which came down just before the election campaign.

I will support colleagues or anybody who will push forward conservative ideas

“I remain concerned with the use of both the Charities Act and the not-for-profit provisions for overtly political purposes particularly in regards to certain tax benefits provided to charities and not-for-profits,” Canavan said.

“If those tax benefits are used to finance what are politicking, canvassing, there is an unequal treatment of actual political parties, regulated by the Electoral Act. It’s a very unequal treatment. Very big questions have to be raised about what we want our democracy to look like.”

GetUp’s ‘distorted, simplistic commentary’

Notwithstanding his opposition to the tax status of third parties, Canavan is all for political involvement and supports moves by colleagues, including Cory Bernardi in establishing Australian Conservatives.

“I consider myself broadly conservative on a lot of issues,” Canavan says. “I will support colleagues or anybody who will push forward conservative ideas.”

But he described the emergence of third forces such as GetUp as the “Americanisation of our politics”.

“I think the spotlight also has to go on your GetUps and your Greens and these forces who have come into our political system at the same time as we have had the disenchantment, because a lot of what they spout is absolute rubbish.

“It’s distorted, simplistic, commentary which has a marketing appeal and I accept that’s politics, but people in Australia have pretty good BS detectors and a lot of what is pushed by those groups is BS.

“That then causes people to switch off completely.”