Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

It's an honour to give this speech, a reply to the Governor-General's speech. I'd just like to thank Her Excellency for not only her service to our nation but the way she very graciously hosted many of the family members of parliamentarians, last week at Government House, including my children. They were thrilled to have Her Excellency sign their copies of the Constitution. Of course, it's the Constitution that guides us in our governance and lawmaking in this place.

The Governor-General's speech was prepared by the government of the day and read by the Governor-General. Of course, there are different narratives of policy and ideology that come to this place through the different parties and the different people who our constituents sent here to represent them. Those ideas are about the best way to move our country forward. I think everyone would agree that we need a strong, prosperous country. We on this side would say that the ideas need to be based on the principles of reward for hard work and innovation, and equality of opportunity. I see policy areas where we seem to be in managed decline. It is imperative that we have a strong opposition and create that alternative vision for the nation because I believe history has shown that, if a country veers towards what I would call left-wing populism and is not facing reality, then everyone gets dragged down in the end.

I was first elected to this place in 2022. It was a great honour to be elected to represent the people of Nicholls as a member of the National Party. In my first speech to this place, I spoke about the themes of opportunity for regional people, particularly through education and through a growing and evolving regional economy. The electorate that I represent, Nicholls, is a wonderful part of northern Victoria. It's bordered to the north by the Murray River—I think the member for Aston might have grown up in Echuca. It goes through the Goulburn and Murray valleys, which are, of course, that wonderful area of agricultural production, and it heads down south towards Seymour and, newly, in this election, to Kilmore, which, as a result of a redistribution, came into the electorate.

The people have placed their trust in me again, for a second term. I suppose every member of this parliament is thinking to themselves: 'Why did I get re-elected? Why did I get given their trust to represent them again in this place?' My assessment would be that I've tried to be a very engaged local member. I have said in this place before that I am on a mission to do football and netball training with every club in my electorate. Of course it may be a bit of a stunt, but, in all seriousness, it does give you the opportunity to not just sit in your office and wait for people to come to you but go where people are congregating, find out what matters to them and make yourself available to them to speak to a member of parliament. If it's at the end of netball training, so be it. I've had many of those wonderful discussions with people at football and netball clubs.

I also think the people of Nicholls, given the history of the place, value the principles of hard work and seizing opportunity. They've tended, I think, to vote more for people on our side because of that sense of entrepreneurship—allowing the free market to work. There's reward for opportunity and, of course, the National Party's commitment to regional Australia. Some examples of this are the wonderful food manufacturing we have and the way that that's innovated and advanced. I've seen the fruit industry innovate and change over the time that I've been involved in agriculture. Of course, many people will know that because they might have done the 'peach challenge', and, if they haven't, they're always welcome to come and do it. Whilst that processed fruit product was ubiquitous in the 1930s through to the 1960s—it was what everyone had for desert—and it's still there, it's evolving now because the logistics, the ability to get fresh fruit to the market, has improved so much that a lot of the production which used to be for processing is now for fresh fruit products. I've also seen the dairy industry make great strides forward in terms of irrigation efficiency, traceability and increased production per cow. There have been technical advances in broadacre cropping using satellite GPS, global satellite positioning, and other technologies which have really improved our productivity. Also, the opening up of new markets has been very important to the people of Nicholls because it means more of our produce can be sent overseas—exported—earning tax dollars for Australia and keeping industries viable. The free trade agreements that were put together, by and large, by the previous coalition governments have assisted this.

I just want to make a couple of observations about my first term in parliament. I think this place works pretty well and I have found it to be a respectful place to work. There's necessary disagreement and there's a contest of ideas, and that contest should be robust. But I don't think it's a disrespectful environment. Sometimes I think the crossbench has a narrative that the parties-of-government system is broken and therefore they've got to come in and solve it—I haven't found that at all. I think parties of government are critical to the way our democracy works. I value the relationships I have made in this place, including with those opposite. It gives you a better understanding of the diversity of Australia. I encourage all the new members to do that—reach out and find out from people who are representing other parts of Australia what matters to them—because you can come into this place with blinkers.

As far as the Albanese government is concerned—and I spent a lot of the last term criticising the Albanese government—I think it is a government that's excellent at campaigning, but, as some of us have said, we would like to see them be a bit better at governing. There are some examples of that, but I don't want to be churlish. I do want to mention some positive actions of the Albanese government which we supported because we thought they were positive. I think the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Commission and some reform around aged care and the way it's funded has been positive. But I think there still needs to be worked on aged-care regulation and how that affects regional aged-care facilities. I welcome also the finalisation—it has been going on for several governments but finalised with the Albanese government—of export protocols for Australian agricultural products to China and the lifting of some tariffs.

I also want to put on record my thanks to the then minister for emergency services, Murray Watt, for his office's assistance to me during the 2022 floods, which caused much damage in my electorate, particularly in Rochester. Rochester is now part of the electorate of Bendigo. I congratulate the member for Bendigo for retaining her seat, but I might make the point that there was a 10 per cent swing towards the Nationals and we nearly got it. Maybe next time.

The policy area I've been talking about the most—and it's critical to the economy of my region and I implore people to try and understand this—is the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This has been going on for a long time. I know that it was started by the Howard government, and I know that during the Rudd and Gillard governments there was some further development of it. I think that's actually when it was signed into law. I think that, in relation to this piece of legislation, no-one really got exactly what they wanted when this was first being negotiated. There were people who thought that huge amounts of irrigation water should be taken away from irrigators across the Murray-Darling Basin and there were people who thought that virtually zero water should be taken. We had to find a compromise somewhere. I thought before I came to this place that we had found a compromise. The collaboration between the member for Watson, who was the water minister at the time, and his successor, the now Leader of the Nationals and member for Maranoa, and many of the state Labor premiers and water ministers meant that I thought we had what could be executed as a policy and still keep the viability of the Murray-Darling Basin going as a food-producing region as well as providing some environmental water that was required. So I was incredibly disappointed with the way that the minister for water in the last term approached this and wanted to rip up a lot of the hard-fought-for negotiations that had been done and produce what I've found to be some irrational actions around removing even more water in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Over 2,000 gigalitres of water that was used to produce agricultural produce in my electorate had already been taken away, so it wasn't like there wasn't already water for the environment, but there was a dispute over a further 450 gigalitres. The agreement that I previously mentioned between the now Leader of the Nationals, who was the then water minister, and the Labor water ministers around the country was, 'We will put some definitions around the socioeconomic impact test, so we will say, "That water can't be taken away if it has a negative socioeconomic impact."' The minister for water's first act was to come in here and tear that socioeconomic impact test up. That means the society and the economy in my area will get damaged, and I think that's really disappointing.

Another disappointing thing about the first term of Labor—and we fought against this—was a thing called a biosecurity tax. It was a bit of a regrettable on-again, off-again distraction for the parliament when somebody in the government decided it would be a good idea for them to impose a levy—so a cost to businesses—to pay for the biosecurity arrangements of the overseas producers who import food into the country and who then compete with them. There was nothing level about that playing field. It was about as level as the pitch at Lord's. After significant lobbying and opposition from the Nationals, though, someone saw sense and withdrew the bill. But it indicates, I think, an attitude that business is a mechanism to tax rather than a creator of wealth, employment and opportunity, and I hope that changes.

We've still got some concerns about biosecurity in relation to US beef imports. There seems to be some confusion in the government about whether the No. 1 concern is biosecurity or a political fix with the United States. I hope that gets resolved. But Australia's biosecurity cannot be compromised in any way, shape or form. The traceability of beef coming in from the US, particularly from its neighbouring countries—where some beef may come in from Mexico or Canada—is critical. Obviously, we've got to get the biosecurity right, but I hope Australians continue to opt for the great-value and great-tasting Australian beef, whether it be from the Angus cattle that my friend Ross Read breeds and feeds on pasture at his farm near Tatura, or the Scotch fillet my friend the member for Gippsland favours at this new haunt that he's found, called the Kingo. It's a lot better than the American stuff.

Live exports was an issue I wasn't an expert in before coming into parliament. Of late it has been primarily a Western Australian issue. But, after visiting Western Australia as part of the backbench committee, I understood the importance of live exports to the ag industry over there. I then understood the potential impact of a ban on eastern state prices, and I think we're going to see that. What was also made very clear was the impracticality of the approach to just have more abattoirs in WA. Many people, including a vet who actually grew up in my region but lives in Fremantle now, called Holly Ludeman, explained to me the significant improvements in animal welfare standards—to the point that, when a ship that had spent some time out in the Indian Ocean was forced to come back due to security issues in Yemen, after they disembarked all the sheep, they were found to actually have gained weight.

I'd like to see the Albanese government focus a bit more on regional infrastructure. The roads are appalling in Victoria. I know that's mostly as a result of neglect by the state government, but we've all got to put pressure on state governments to make sure that we maintain our road network. It's not just annoying for passenger-car drivers; it's a critical problem for businesses, because they're telling me that the damage to their machinery on our roads when they hit potholes is significant. Part of the reason I wanted to come to parliament—apart from what I'd seen in my community—and run as a National Party candidate was the focus on infrastructure in regional areas that the Nationals had put forward, whether it be art museums, sporting facilities or really big game-changing pieces of infrastructure like the Echuca-Moama Bridge.

I'll make a few comments on energy. It seems to be a big issue around the parliament at the moment. The debate about climate change can be frustrating; it's so binary in this place. There are a couple of principles. Firstly, we need affordable, reliable power. It is the economy, and it underpins the wealth and jobs we have here in Australia. If we do not manage the energy grid properly and prices continue to skyrocket, as I fear they will, then industries will not just close down altogether and the emissions are gone—and I know that there are some activists who think that would be a good thing. The industries will just move offshore. Yes, Australia loses the emissions, but we lose all the economic activity. So that's really critical.

We want to reduce emissions and we want to be part of a global effort that the large emitters contribute to, but we don't want to damage our environment with renewables in inappropriate places, and there's a bit of that happening in my electorate and a lot of it happening in some of my colleagues' electorates. I think we need a range of technologies to help us get to whatever our emissions reduction targets are, and they've got to be realistic. I think that might be solar and wind, but only in the right location and only if they're viable. I think there's going to need to be a significant increase in gas exploration to supply industry, and I honestly believe that nuclear will have a part to play in the mix and that we should lift the moratorium sooner rather than later.

This all leads me to make this point: there's a concept in Australia at the moment where we ban things in Australia only to have them expanded or replicated overseas—but with less regulation so that the damage in other parts of the world is worse. Take the energy transition. We sell our coal, gas and other minerals, including uranium, but we ban them from being used in our own country. We ban the live export of sheep. The demand for live sheep doesn't reduce, particularly in the Middle Eastern countries, but the industry is taken over by countries like Sudan and South Africa, who don't have anywhere near the animal welfare standards that we have. We ban hardwood timber, but then, when we need hardwood timber, we import it from New Zealand or Indonesia.

The concept is that global demand doesn't shift. In many cases, our demand doesn't shift, but through regulation—which governments such as the Albanese governments seem to have an obsession with—we lock ourselves out of the economic opportunities for our own people, and there's also the fact that we will do some of these necessary things, like provide food for people, provide hardwood timber and provide energy, and we'll do it in a better way.

Finally, there's been a lot of commentary on both sides around social cohesion, and I think we understand that's not going in the right direction in Australia. Some things I'm seeing disturb me greatly. I'd just like to point out something that I said in my maiden speech. I said:

In addition, the electorate of Nicholls is, I believe, one of the most successful examples of multiculturalism in the world. People from all over have made their way to this region, often coming with nothing, and they have made extraordinary lives. My observation as a member of this community is that we seem to do better when we celebrate each other's different cultural identity but moreover—

the bigger thing is that we—

embrace each other's humanity, the humanity being a stronger bond between us than any divisions that tend to be amplified by race, gender, sexual orientation or religious view.

I suppose that there's that ideology about identity, or all coming together and striving for a similar goal, and that similar goal is an Australia where everyone has an opportunity and we look after everyone to get ahead, but the rewards for hard work are there, and no-one's locked out of aspiring towards those rewards if they're prepared to work, to access the education that's on offer, to take a risk and to become part of what has become one of the great societies in the history of the world.

It's going to be an interesting term for us. Obviously, there are fewer numbers on this side. We'll be a strong opposition. I wish everyone all the best this term for spirited debate, and, hopefully, we can move Australia forward.

See this speech in context