Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Forrest says, as though 'they're doing us a favour'. I'm glad that the member for Flynn is in the chamber. I would urge and encourage anybody who wants to know more about this Nature Repair Market Bill to read the speech he delivered in this chamber last night. He had five years of experience in the Queensland parliament before he came here. He's doing a great job as a first-term member for Flynn, an electorate that is large and wide and takes in a considerable amount of agriculture. The member for Flynn himself knows all about transport and farming and comes to this place with lived experience. When you finish reading Colin Boyce's speech, then read the Member for Parkes's speech. He just delivered a great speech. It's one of his best ever. He got quite animated—and for good reason—because when you hear the Nationals and the Liberals talking about this Nature Repair Market Bill legislation, they come here with lived experience. They give firsthand accounts of having spoken to people in their electorates, in their communities, about the important things that we need to do to improve soil, to enhance productivity and to improve agriculture—not necessarily what is contained in this legislation.

I note in the Treasurer's May budget speech, very early in his address, he obliquely—and it was very obliquely—referenced the 'high prices for the things we sell overseas'. I note that he could not possibly bring himself to say what those things actually were—coal, gas, iron ore, farm production, agriculture. They're the things that those opposite just don't seem to have a reality around. They don't seem to have that lived experience concept about what might be good for the mining or the agricultural industries.

The member for Flynn will back me up on this. The Queensland budget surplus this week—apparently a record on the back of what we dig out of the ground and what we produce from regional areas—will pay for a lot of public servants, a lot of their pay increases, a lot of power, a lot of state hospitals and a lot of public schools, hospitals and schools which were once always the remit of state governments. Somehow, someway, as the Commonwealth, we have to pay for everything nowadays. But we're not going to be able to continue to pay for everything if we cruel those industries which are carrying this country, which, certainly during COVID-19, provided the backbone for this country to keep people alive.

It absolutely angers me when members opposite, from their Labor dirt unit talking points, say, 'A trillion dollars worth of Liberal debt,' which ain't true. It's nowhere near a trillion dollars. But they say, 'What did we get for it?' What did we get for the debt that we are in now? I'll remind those members opposite, and I'll remind any member of the public listening, what we achieved from the spending during the worst times of COVID. I'll note we're not out of the woods yet with the global pandemic. We kept at least 60,000 people alive. That's 60,000 Australians who are alive now who otherwise would not be alive had we not spent that money, and who have jobs now who otherwise would not have jobs had we not spent that money. There are those businesses whose doors are still open that would be closed and bankrupted and forever have their doors shut but for the money that we spent. I say: good on the former member for Kooyong, the former Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg; he did an outstanding job and I hope to see him back here in the not too distant future.

This city-centric Labor government does not, unfortunately, have a high regard for the regions. If it did, Mr Deputy Speaker, you would have seen the Treasurer, the member for Rankin, help those regions with infrastructure money. Do you know what? For very first time in a quarter of a century the Treasurer of Australia stood at that dispatch box, just there, and did not mention the word 'infrastructure' once—not once, for the first time in 25 years. I call that out and I say it is a disgrace.

I'll credit Labor with one thing: they are very sneaky, tricky and clever when it comes to naming bills. Some might say these bills, the 'nature repair market' bills, are cleverly titled. I call it out. I say they're deceptively titled, because, as the member for Flynn quite correctly pointed out in his contribution last night, nature is not broken. It's challenged, but it always is. It's challenged by the very fact that we live in a country of floods and droughts followed by more floods and more droughts. That is the nature of this country. It always has been; it always will be. Let me tell you, when we have a drought and then we have rains, nature bounces back far more quickly and far more easily than the farmers who till the soil, the farmers who work that land for a living—the farmers who every day we should say thank you to. We should say it every day, three times a day. Do you know when that is? When we tuck our knees under the table and eat something. We should say: 'Thank you, Australian farmers, for doing the job that you do. Thank you, Australian farmers, for the service that you provide, often without getting the money that you deserve.' That is because they are price takers, not price makers, our Australian farmers.

I am proud to say that I come from a family of generational farmers. I am proud to say that my Riverina electorate produces some of the finest goods that our nation eats and our nation exports. I stand here beside a fine dairy farmer from Western Australia, in the member for Forrest, and I know how proud she is of her farm, her electorate and, indeed, the good folk of Western Australia who till the soil to provide market opportunities to help our balance of payments and put food on the table of Australians three times a day, every day.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I'll tell you who will be broken if Labor continues its anti-rural policies. It won't be nature; it will be our farmers. The coalition is extremely worried about the passage of these bills. You only have to look at some of the media releases that the member for Capricornia has issued recently about her concern for farmers forced off the land because of renewables. We all like renewables. I appreciate that they are part of the transition to a clean energy future—I get that. I can stand here and say that. I can stand here and voice that view. And I know that certainly in the halls and classrooms of our schools, in community halls and in the corridors of power right across this nation renewables are widely and readily accepted and discussed, and that is a good thing. I also appreciate that at the last election, for whatever reason, people voted in some members who, quite frankly, have probably hardly ever visited regional Australia. It is a shame, because I think every member of this House needs to know what goes on in regional Australia and needs to know those industries that pay for the things that we all need in this nation. Unlike the Treasurer, I'm not frightened to say what those things are. I talk about things, not in oblique terms but in real terms. We do need to keep the lights on. We keep the lights on, at the moment, because of the mining industry. We keep the lights on, at the moment, because of coal. We keep the lights on, at the moment, yes, because of hydro energy. There's a mix, and it's important to have that balance.

As the member for Capricornia rightly suggested in her 15 February 2023 media release, titled 'Farmers forced off land for renewables,' we shouldn't have renewables pushed at some holy altar ahead of what our farmers are doing. Farmers have been forced off prime agricultural land because of a situation with the Queensland government—and, no doubt, the Commonwealth government too—putting in place the risks for a dire situation which is facing farmers and locals of the Pioneer Valley and Eungella. What we're doing there is sacrificing prime agricultural land for renewables.

At the moment, in my electorate, we've got a situation with massive solar farms taking the place of vital prime agricultural land. We only have a certain amount of prime agricultural land. You can't create prime agricultural land from the desert in the middle of Australia. Maybe they might invent something in the future that might be able to do that, but at the moment that's not quite possible. I appreciate that renewables are important, and also appreciate making sure that we have an energy transition in the future. I appreciate all of those things. But there's going to be a place for coal and gas, and that place is going to last for decades and decades and decades. That's not just because of the thousands upon tens of thousands of workers that they provide with jobs, but also because they keep the lights on, they keep us cool in summer, they keep us heated in winter and they pay for a fair amount—a jolly good amount—of exports which keep our schools and hospitals running.

The member for Parkes, in his contribution, talked about the dire consequences of this strategy that Labor seems to engage in, and that is to lock it up and leave it. When you have a situation—and the member for Flynn mentioned it too—whereby some beaches and some hilltop walks are now shut to all of those except for native titleholders, I think that's a worry. I know the member for Flynn does too, because those sorts of places are important places for fishing, boating, camping and tourism. But we saw in the Black Summer bushfires what happens when you lock it up and leave it; what happens when you go down the Greens' way. The Greens' way would never, ever consider regional Australia and make it a priority. When you don't have controlled burning, when you lock up state forests and national parks and leave them, they get overrun by pests. They get overrun over by feral animals. They get overrun over by weeds and they get overrun with undergrowth. Then when you get hot summer weather and bushfire-prone conditions, it just takes a spark, or some idiot to throw a cigarette out the window of his or her car, and next thing—boom! You've got a conflagration. You've got a bushfire season, like we had in 2019-20, that costs lives, houses and businesses, and which comes at the expense, dare I say, of koalas and so many other native animals.

So this legislation, the Nature Repair Market Bill, is, like most things with Labor, a doozy. It's ill-named. You've got to read the detail before you think, 'Well, is this worth supporting?' As with everything that this government brings forward, it's probably not, because the devil is in the detail. We want to have the best soils—and the member for Paterson and I are co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Soil—and we want the best outcomes, but they have to be practical. Locking up land and leaving it isn't doing the trick.

See this speech in context