Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I join my colleagues in congratulating you on your well-deserved election to Deputy Speaker for this House.

As we begin the 48th Parliament, I am deeply aware of the honour that every member who sits in this House on both sides has in representing the electorates that they come from. It's a very serious position to take to be able to represent, in my case, the 130,000 people living in the region of Mallee. I want to thank all of those who spent their time, their energy, their money backing me for this third time to take up this position to represent the people of Mallee. I want to thank my family, of course; my staff, many of whom have been here this week and those back home in my two offices—two, given the size of Mallee; and especially my husband. I don't think we spend enough time thanking our wonderful partners. My husband of 48 years, this year, is my rock and remains my rock.

I rise today, this afternoon, in the very privileged position as the sworn-in representative of Mallee. I'm humbled that they bring their stories to life and that I have the opportunity to bring their stories to life in this House.

Mallee extends, for those who don't know, from Maryborough in the south to Cohuna in the east, Edenhope to the west and Mildura to the north of Victoria. The electorate covers 83½ thousand square kilometres, over a third of the state of Victoria—if you look at it, it is quite frightening—and it boasts prime agricultural and horticultural land that grows stone fruit, grapes, vegetables, wheat, legumes, olive, almonds, dairy, sheep and beef, just to name a few.

Cropping land makes up 43 per cent of that north-west Victorian region. Mallee is an essential part of Australia's food bowl and a key to the country's food security. Why do I say that? Because the public policies developed in this parliament—and, of course, in the Senate—are not just words on paper to be filed away; they have a huge impact on people's lives every day, and that impact can be positive or negative; hence, I would like to reflect, over the course of my speech, on the importance of good policy and the perils of poor policy as they relate to constituents in regional electorates across the country, especially Mallee.

While I applaud good policy and bipartisan commitments to defence, such as AUKUS, and to ensuring that our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is not used as a bargaining tool to fight US tariffs, there are too many examples of bad policy from the last three years under the Albanese Labor government that I must call out. This is my job. In my home state of Victoria, we have state and federal Labor governments who are zeroing in on my electorate of Mallee as a dumping ground for bad policy—namely, railroading and dividing small regional communities and farmers with unwanted wind turbines, solar panels and transmission line projects. This is all in the name of a 43 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

These communities, my communities, many of them made up of multigenerational farming families, are sick and tired of their private-property rights being eroded, their land values and income-generating capacity being put at enormous risk, their children's future being played like pieces on a chess board and their communities being torn apart as neighbours are pitted against neighbours. As Andrew Weidemann of the Dunmunkle Land Protection Group, a farmer in Rupanyup in my electorate of Mallee, said at an event in Horsham last night, 'Net zero was meant to be about making the world a better place.' That is true. But I tell you what: in practice, on the ground, this policy is not making life better for people in Mallee or indeed improving the budgets of every Australian household. Check your latest energy bill.

I encourage you to take a look at the wonderful way the Institute of Public Affairs has captured some of the stories of the people in communities across Mallee who are affected by this reckless renewable rollout in their video titled The Faces of Net Zero, released today. I commend those courageous people who were part of that project, and other leaders, for their tireless work and ongoing fight in their communities to protect their way of life. I would like to mention Marcia McIntyre, who features in the IPA video and whose farm in Kanya is in the line of the proposed VNI West transmission line. Marcia is a tireless advocate for her community. I also want to mention Ben Duxson, who generously hosted my event at his farm, also in Kanya, late last year, where I took the shadow treasurer, Ted O'Brien, then the shadow minister for energy, and the Victorian opposition shadow energy minister, David Davis, to hear from Wimmera locals about their opposition to renewable projects and especially the imposition of the VNI West transmission line.

These people represent the many in Mallee and beyond who feel as though they have no voice. Communities in the Wimmera are facing the imposition of large-scale projects with a total lack of information transparency, token consultation and, therefore, a complete lack of social licence. While I have long advocated that renewable energy and mining projects in the regions must have social licence and tangible community benefits, the emerging themes of a recent electorate-wide survey undertaken across Mallee suggest that the majority of respondents expect much more than just token community consultation as a mechanism for gaining social licence. They object to the imposition of energy or mining projects on farming land altogether and, indeed, would like a right of veto to these projects, as exists in Western Australia.

I again reiterate the important role this part of Mallee plays in food production and therefore food security. There is a relative scarcity in this country of prime agricultural land and a blatant disregard for agricultural value from both the state and federal Labor governments in their drive towards net zero. It is no coincidence that the Victorian state energy minister, Lily D'Ambrosio, visited Kerang and Wycheproof recently and that VicGrid's chief executive, Alistair Parker, was also in the region—both, at times, receiving justifiably prickly receptions. Farmers who object to the Victorian government representatives entering their properties without the farmer's consent risk a $12,000 fine for refusing access. This is a dystopian nightmare coming to life on Victorian farms. The newly legislated government controls over private property are unprecedented.

Mallee farmers, who are a down-to-earth bunch, know better than anyone that this drive towards net zero is an impossible task that will destroy not only pristine landscapes and prime agricultural land but the nation's economy and our livelihoods more broadly as well. The constituents survey I mentioned earlier highlighted that almost 60 per cent of respondents in Mallee oppose both the 2030 renewable targets and net zero by 2050. They prioritise affordability and reliability in our energy system and are not willing to pay a dollar—68 per cent of them, at that—to fund the energy transition. Think about that. If 68 per cent of my electorate is representative of the rest of regional Australia, that is millions of people who are not willing to put one dollar towards this energy transition, yet we know that Australians are already paying for net zero. Not only have Australians not seen the $275 reduction in energy bills repeatedly promised by the Prime Minister in the last term of government but electricity bills have increased by 32 per cent and gas bills by 34 per cent, driving the persistent cost-of-living crisis that is crushing household budgets.

Labor are not content just to railroad regional communities to tick the boxes on their unachievable political targets for city votes; Labor—both the Albanese and the Allan governments—are raiding farmers for money too. Victoria's so-called emergency services and volunteers fund levy is a tax on land values, and it took the protests of farmers like those I've mentioned in Spring Street to get Labor to realise that there's a drought on in western Victoria. So, in their benevolence, they've given farmers just one year of reprieve.

On top of that, the Albanese Labor government, with the Treasurer's customary smirk and shrug of the shoulders, say, 'Too bad, mate; we need your money.' They're now coming for farmers' unrealised capital gains. It's a simple and offensive proposition. Your farm value or your small-business value goes up, but that's only on paper. You haven't realised that gain. You haven't sold the business or the farm to earn that money, but Labor want to tax farmers and small-business owners for those gains every year.

Nowhere in the world has a government been as brazen as the Albanese Labor government in raiding money from people who are in drought—in drought! As farmers are telling me, they will have no option but to sell land to pay the new taxes every year with the new super tax. It is outrageous. Farmers are asset rich but cash poor. Wimmera farmer Ross Johns has asked: why is the government destroying the farming future of his 30-year-old son?

And let's remember that Labor's raid on self-managed super funds won't end there. In question time yesterday, they would not rule out taxing the family home or family trusts. In their hubris and their triumph at outgreening the Greens, they've turned the politics of envy up to maximum and are raiding small-business owners and farmers for money that simply is not there. And let's not forget the Henry VIII clause, the power the Treasurer wants to give himself to tweak the dials harder to bring in even more revenue for Labor's reckless spending priorities without any checks or balances in this House. Make no mistake: this radical Labor government is determined to bleed Australia dry and then some more. Small businesses and farmers are the engine of our economy, but Labor only want their chosen winners—their union affiliates—to succeed and to increase in productivity in this country.

Another example of horrible policy from this government is water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin. Our food security is in deep trouble. I was speaking with AUSVEG about this yesterday here in Canberra. We cannot assume traditional supply chains from overseas will continue to hold strong, as they once did. Labor seem to have forgotten the food supply shocks we experienced during the pandemic and as a result of natural disasters. The common theme here, whether it's railroading regional communities with utterly unachievable energy rollout targets or buying back water from farmers to please radical environmentalists, is that Labor puts our food security at risk.

And the risks don't end there. We have had some level of bipartisanship with the government in acknowledging that local government is not sustainable. I have called and called again, as shadow minister for local government, for this government to resume the parliamentary inquiry into local government sustainability. My own councils in Mallee have dire sustainability issues, and this comes back to risk and, of course, local roads. Councils are struggling to maintain their local roads, getting no funding from federal or state governments. The Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program the coalition established in government has ceased, and councils loved that program. It gave them money every year to spend on their priorities. Regional councils got more out of this program than city councils, so, yet again, we see Labor raiding regions to buy votes in the city by scrapping the program. Labor is bleeding regional Australia dry, pretending they don't exist so they can railroad their transmission lines and their turbines and raid farmers for money so they can celebrate more electoral triumphs in the inner city.

To that end, I want to commend the Daily Telegraph and other media outlets like Sky News and organisations like the Institute of Public Affairs for joining me and my Nationals colleagues in giving a voice and a face to these farmers, the collateral damage—or, as Premier Chris Minns implied in that story, the sacrifice for Labor's agenda. For two days running this week, the Daily Telegraph has profiled farmers in the firing line of a wind project in Binalong and Bowning, and I can tell you that Emma Webb and her father Angus Oberg's stories from that farming community are all too familiar to me as the member for Mallee. I've been talking about it here, in the media, wherever I can, because these are the human stories, the Australian stories, the real people whose lives are being turned upside down by Labor rewiring the nation and bleeding the country dry for tax revenue. I will continue to stand and I will continue to fight through this parliament, the 48th Parliament, for the people who live in regional Australia so that they get a much better deal than they're getting right now.

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