Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The subject of this MPI is that regional Australia has given up on Labor because Labor has given up on them. Labor has never really been that popular in the regions, and, historically, I think we can understand why. The regions are a place that, traditionally, entrepreneurial people have moved to, and entrepreneurial people are more attracted to the coalition's side because we support business, we support small business and, of course, in the Country Party, now the National Party, which I'm very proud to be a member of, we support the businesses that operate in regional Australia.

But I noticed before I came into parliament that previous Labor governments and Labor oppositions at least had people who showed some interest in regional Australia, and I say that in deference to the late Simon Crean and also to Joel Fitzgibbon in previous governments and oppositions. But this Albanese Labor government is just not interested in regional Australia. I'll also give a shout-out to the current Leader of the House. When he was the shadow water minister, he was relatively—and I say 'relatively', because we didn't entirely get what we wanted. But he had some understanding when negotiating the Murray-Darling Basin Plan with our then water minister David Littleproud and the member for New England.

So what happened when the new government came in? The agreement that had happened for the Murray-Darling Basin got completely smashed. I can say with great certainty that my region has given up on the Albanese Labor government because of what they've done in relation to their new Murray-Darling Basin plan. In fact, they don't even call it the Murray-Darling Basin plan anymore. They call it the Plibersek plan, after the minister for water. It's reneged on the agreements that had happened with the states. It's reneged on agreements that were going to put a socioeconomic impact test in place before ripping out 450 gigalitres of extra water. All of this is important because it drives the industries that employ the people in regional Australia.

You can get up and talk about fee-free TAFE and you can say, 'We built this and we funded this and we did that.' That's all nice. What regional people want is to be able to do the jobs that they love doing: farming and food processing. If you take the tools away from them—like irrigation water—they can't do that anymore, and no amount of money that someone throws at them for some silo art or God knows what else is going to satisfy those people, because they don't just do it for money; they do it because they love it and because they want to provide food and fibre to people who live in other parts of Australia and other parts of the world.

I spoke earlier today about energy policy, the Integrated System Plan, and I described it as having more holes in it than the colander in my kitchen. Its energy policy is a mess. There is no serious analysis of how we're going to firm 82 per cent renewables, and that's important because, as I mentioned before—I was on Sky News doing an interview. The member for Warringah was before me and said: 'Baseload power is an antiquated idea. It doesn't matter anymore.' They crossed to me and said, 'What do you think, Sam?' I said: 'I'm standing in an apple orchard. How are we going to refrigerate these apples without baseload power? They don't stop needing refrigeration when the wind's not blowing or the sun's not shining.' This discussion about firming is really important.

It's not only that. It's what the renewables are doing to people in regional Australia. I've got a beautiful, small—and it's small, so you don't care, because there aren't that many people there—region called Colbinabbin. There are 650 hectares of solar panels on prime agricultural land in the middle of one of the great wine-growing areas of Australia. I spoke to a young couple from Timmering, who are off the grid. They're doing more for climate change than a lot of people living in the concrete jungles of Australia. They're off the grid. They're growing vegetables. They're growing sustainable meat. They said to me: 'Sam, member for Nicholls, I'm trying to do everything right for the environment. Why do I have to have wind turbines the height of the Rialto'—go and have a look at the CBD of Melbourne—'and many of them two kilometres away from where I'm trying to sustainably produce sheep and vegetables?' Please get interested in regional Australia. It's worth it.

See this speech in context