Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I think what I'm saying is quite interesting, so I wish I could hear myself. The other major issue with this that no-one has answers to—and, obviously, you don't hear the Greens talking about this, you don't hear the teal party talking about this, and you don't hear inner-city Labor MPs talking about this—is the massive disposal issue that we're going to have with wind turbines and solar panels. Of course, it doesn't matter, because they're not going to be disposed in the cities. There are a lot of environmental issues to consider there.

I want to give out some figures—and I'm sure some of my colleagues will give other examples of this—and some examples of one project in the Central West of New South Wales. Families were offered $5,000 to compensate for visual impacts. Of the submissions from local people received during an environmental impact statement, 96 per cent objected to the project. Insurance prices have doubled because insurance companies are now saying, 'With renewable projects next to your property, it has increased risk.'

The department themselves acknowledged that the construction of transmission lines would result in impacts to diversity. This particular project is dominated by agricultural land use. The project requires the permanent acquisition of 30 parcels of land for infrastructure. The people who objected raised concerns about impacts to landscape, visual amenity, agricultural land, socioeconomic factors and biodiversity. These issues are real; they are real for our communities and communities of people in rural and regional Australia. Again, with the member for Warringah, the Greens MPs and the inner-city Labor MPs, we are just scaremongering. It's just not acceptable to our communities.

I don't know if you remember the movie The Hunger Games. In The Hunger Games there was the Capitol. Who lives in the Capitol? The teals live in the Capitol. The Greens MPs live in the Capitol. A lot of Labor MPs live in the Capitol with President Snow. But what do the sectors do? Sectors 8, 9 and 10 were ag. Sectors 8, 9 and 10 fed the Capitol. Sector 5—there are a lot of sector 5 people here—had the coal mines and the mining; they powered the Capitol. Don't be sector 12—they bombed sector 12. The member for Fairfax would like this: sector 13 was the nuclear sector. At least President Snow was aware of the need for nuclear.

I see this so much in a lot of legislation that I talk about now. There was the Murray-Darling Basin plan, which affected a lot of communities, and the live export ban. The Prime Minister thought it was a great joke last night to insult every sheep farmer in Australia about live exports, saying live exports were a terrible thing. Again, lots of legislation in this chamber is about elite city MPs—the Teals, the Greens and the inner-city Labor MPs—just saying: 'We know what's best for you to do in the rural, regional and remote communities. We'll tell you what you can do, we'll tell you what you can't do and we'll tell you how you do it.'

I can tell you that this issue, along with a lot of others, as I just mentioned—whether it be water issues, live export, agriculture issues or a lot of other things—has my community outraged. There was an uprising in The Hunger Games, and they marched on the capital. They will come and protest. The first one will be the protest to keep the sheep. Our communities have had enough of being told what to do and what they can't do.

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