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

I hear interjections from opposite, but that's not me saying that. You know who's saying that?

It's the thousands of farmers who are out there today and who I'm sure the member for Lyons wouldn't have gone anywhere near. It's not me saying that; it's the thousands of farmers who were out there today saying there is a big divide between inner-city, elite MPs—you can feel the sanctimony dripping in this place at times. The sanctimony is no heavier than it is over there with the teals and the Greens inner-city MPs, but certainly there's a fair share of inner-city Labor MPs from whom sanctimony drips heavy. That's not me saying that. That was from the farmers out the front of this building today, who were saying inner-city, elite MPs do not understand what they do, do not come and talk to them about what they do and have, again, hypocrisy over what they do.

Deputy Speaker, you'll remember just a couple of weeks ago that we were talking about another divide between inner-city, elite MPs and the country, and that was over the transmission system for solar panels and wind turbines. We saw that inner-city MPs—the teals, the Greens and the Labor ones—didn't want any solar panels or wind turbines on North Head, but, gee, let it rip out in the country. And here again today it's the same thing.

There were about four or five themes out there today, but the driving one was the inner-city MPs' ideological hatred of live export—that's what drove today's rally. I'd be interested—and I'm happy to stand corrected—if any of these entitled, inner-city, elite MPs want to come in and tell me they have been to Katanning. I have. I've been over there to speak to the sheep producers there. I've been onto a live export ship to see, as the Leader of the Nationals just articulated, that a lot of work has happened. No industry is perfect, and mistakes have been made. But, gee, a lot of good work has happened in the live export industry over the last five or six years. We lead in animal welfare around the world. But, again, there's this ideological obsession of the entitled elite, inner-city MPs who think they know best and say: 'We'll tell you what you can do. We'll tell you what you can't do. We know best, from our inner-city, leafy suburbs, about what you should be doing out on the farms that you have.' That was one of the really heavy themes out there.

But I also want to make the point to those opposite that when you say to countries like Kuwait, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who want to import live sheep, 'The industry of exporting live sheep is not okay,' you're saying to those countries, 'What you want and the fact that you want it are not okay.' That's what you're saying. That's damaging to trade relationships. That, again, is the entitled attitude that these inner-city MPs have. They think they know best. They're saying to Kuwait, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, 'The fact that you want to import live exported sheep is bad; you shouldn't do that.' That's what they are saying. Again, you shouldn't be surprised. I'm not surprised that our inner-city, elite MPs think like that, but it is disappointing for the industries and the people who are trying to make money out of that industry. As we said to the farmers out there today, on the election of a Dutton-Littleproud government we will reverse that decision and let the live export of sheep continue.

There were a number of other themes. The other one, certainly, was water. The other thing that the entitled inner-city MPs don't want—the minister for the environment, being an inner-city MP herself, doesn't want farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin to have all the water they have now. She's taken water away from them. What does that mean? That means our farmers don't have the water that they otherwise would have to grow food and fibre in this country.

I was going to go into the Minerals Council resources dinner last night. They're not happy with the government. The Prime Minister said, 'No-one held back, no-one left behind'. Well, you're doing a lot of that, Prime Minister.

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