Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker, Minister for Regional Health, Regional Communications and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Right on cue, following the member for Macnamara! I've been listening to the contributions of those opposite, led by the member for Melbourne, the member for Warringah and others, about climate change. I offer the member for Macnamara a visit to the half of New South Wales that I represent, where I can show him thousands of hectares of solar farms and wind farms, the fact that Dubbo has the highest uptake of rooftop solar and where nearly every farmer is using solar to supplement their energy—they're pumping water. On my own farm, the water is pumped to the livestock by solar panels.

I'd like to understand why the members who live in the most altered part of the country seem to think that electorates like mine should be used as carbon offsets. If we're going to reach the emissions level we want, this is an issue for everyone, not just for the regions. I could show you that in my electorate my farmers are producing more kilograms of grain and fibre with less energy, diesel and megalitres of water than ever before.

Regional Australia, with the assistance of this government, is leading the charge for the change of climate change, and I will not sit here and be lectured by those that live in the other parts of the state saying that nothing is happening in this country about addressing climate change, because the people in my electorate are not only leading the country they are leading the world with what they're doing. (Time expired)