United Kingdom. Joyce has also opposed the sale of large Australian agricultural assets to foreign investors. In 2012, as the Opposition spokesman for Water, Joyce was vocal in his unsuccessful opposition to the sale of Cubbie Station to a consortium led by a Chinese State Owned Enterprise. In 2013, as Agriculture Minister, Joyce and his National Party colleagues strongly opposed the proposed sale of Australia's largest bulk grain handler GrainCorp to the American company Archer Daniels Midland. The then Liberal Treasurer, Joe Hockey, rejected the sale based on the hugely discretionary "National Interest" grounds which a Treasurer can use to block such transactions. Despite the reasons Hockey used to justify his decision, it was widely reported that the National Party demanded this outcome, with the Labor Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen accusing the junior Coalition partner of "bullying" the Treasurer into arriving at this decision. In 2015, Joyce voiced opposition to the sale of another large Australian asset to foreign buyers, this time S. Kidman & Co, which owned the largest combined landholdings in Australia, including the iconic Kidman Station. Most of the known interest came from Chinese companies, and Joyce was accused of xenophobia; claims which he rejected. In November 2015, the Treasurer, Scott Morrison decided that the sale of S. Kidman & Co to any foreign investor would not be approved based on national security grounds, due to part of the company being in the vicinity of the Woomera Prohibited Area, among other reasons. The Labor Shadow Agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon slammed the Government's decision as "political" and accused it of running a "discriminatory foreign investment regime". Banking royal commission When Joyce was leader of the Nationals and deputy prime minister, he repeatedly argued against a banking royal commission. After disturbing evidence emerged after hearings for the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry began in 2018, CPA Joyce said, as a backbencher, that he was wrong and naive in previously opposing a royal commission. Environmental issues Renewable energy Joyce believes that renewable energy causes problems with energy supply. In January 2021 he called upon Zali Steggall, a prominent renewable energy advocate, to explain why renewable energy had led to power cuts in Manly and other Sydney suburbs, and followed up with "I don’t have to win this argument the facts are doing it for me". However enquiries to Ausgrid showed that the outages