Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Karen Mason and Barry Kohlhagen from The Rock and Mick Henderson from Maxwell are constituents of mine, and, in the spirit of this constituency statement, they were at the 2025 Bush Summit, sponsored by The Daily Telegraph and Gina Rinehart, yesterday in Wagga Wagga. The Prime Minister was there, the Premier of New South Wales was there, the member for New England was there, and I was there. All of those movers and shakers from the Wagga Wagga district and the Riverina converged on the largest inland city in New South Wales to talk about what is good, or what should be good, for the bush. I thank Ben English, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, for hosting this.

The constituents I mentioned are upset about the rollout of renewables. Many of them are not against renewables; it's just the mad rush to roll them out, particularly in the Riverina electorate, which is not a renewable energy zone. Ian 'Jock' Munro got up at four o'clock in the morning and drove there from Rankins Springs with Noel Hicks, a former member for Riverina, from Griffith, and they were holding up placards about land and renewables. When it comes to land, I note that the Grain Producers Australia CEO Colin Bettles has belled the cat on the potential sale—which the Foreign Investment Review Board is not even examining, because the buyers are from the United States—of our farmland, and we've only got so much farmland.

I can recall, when we took office in 2013, that the trigger for the FIRB was—wait for this—$252 million. Labor wanted to make it a billion dollars. We brought it down to $15 million cumulatively, but, because of the tariff negotiations and free trade arrangements with the US, companies and individuals and churches can come in from the US and buy as much farmland as they like. That is one real major issue for our farmers and for our regional people, but the biggest issue at the moment—it's the burning issue, literally—is the rush to renewables. Yass mayor Jasmin Jones stood up in the audience yesterday and took issue with the discussions that were taking place. She said: 'Your government is riding roughshod over regional Australians, and we have had a gutful. I'm the mayor of that community, Yass Valley, and we have said "no more". You need to come to our region and meet the farmers who have said "enough". Get yourself out to the region and see what's happening on the ground.'

I call on the member for McMahon to come to the Riverina and take a look for himself. I call on him for two reasons. The first is this rush to renewables is madness, and the second reason I want the member for McMahon to come out is that I want my vote to go up.

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